When the dishes were all washed, she wiped down the table and dried her hands on a shirt one of the kids had left draped over the kitchen chair. She pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her jean pocket and stood thinking about where she could hide it so only Mary Jane would find it. Finally, she settled on the flour bag. Cash opened the bag and dropped the cash in. Folded the bag back over and set it down on the counter. The next time Mary Jane made frybread she would find it.
Cash put on the jean-jacket sweatshirt combo she had taken off to help cook.
She zipped up, checked the cigarette pack and saw there were only two left in the pack. May as well leave them for the kids too, she thought. She put them behind the flour bag, not trusting the feds. They might take them and smoke them themselves.
She took one more look around and left the house, pulling the inside door and the screen door shut tight behind her. The feds watched her drive away. Judging from the way they looked at her, then started talking to each other, Cash wondered if maybe now they recognized her Ranchero, where they hadn’t recognized her. Too late. She was gone.
She drove about five miles, chain-smoking from the pack she had left lying on the car seat. She was looking for something. She almost passed it but then slowed, backed up and whipped the Ranchero down a hunting road. The truck bounced over ruts. A couple times Cash felt the hair on top of her head skim the roof of the truck. She kept going, jerking the wheel. She finally slammed on the brakes. Without turning off the headlights, she jumped out of the truck into a grove of maple trees.
“Damn!!!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. She thrashed along the hunting trail until she found a sizable branch. Putting both hands on it like she was swinging a baseball bat, she attacked the nearest tree, her braid down her back swinging hard in the opposite direction. Screams, swear words and guttural sounds of rage echoed through the woods. When that first branch broke, Cash yelled, “Fuck you” and threw it as far as it would go, then stormed along the trail until she found another branch and kept raging on.
Bark flew in all directions. Unseen animals hurried to be even more unseen. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Damn. Damn. Damn. She screamed and attacked. When her physical strength gave out, she collapsed on the ground under a maple tree and sobbed deep gulping spasms of rage and grief. When that wave subsided, she wiped her nose and cheeks on the sleeve of her jean jacket.
She quieted. Now more gentle tears fell as she cried for the little girl who woke one day in jail and found herself alone for the next sixteen years. She cried for seven children who knew what they had lost, a mom and dad who loved them. She cried because those kids still had each other. And she cried for herself because she had no one. Fuck. Damn. Cash took another swipe at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket.
Coming towards her was Josie Day Dodge. She was carrying a stack of birchbark winnowing baskets on her left hip. Her long black hair was swaying, hanging loosely down her back. Her hair curly, indicating it had recently been braided. Over her left shoulder hung strands of wiigwas.
As she passed Cash, she said, “Remember Eagle Straight Walker.” And simultaneously with her words, a man danced himself into being, white eagle feather bustles were two circles on his back. As he danced, a shimmery white light emanated from him. As soon as he danced, he disappeared.
Josie turned halfway around and said, “The only job of big people is to protect the little people. You know, that drinking will kill you.” And she walked deeper into the maple trees.
Cash watched her until she was out of sight. Another wave of grief and tears enveloped her. She lay on the ground, curled in a ball until the waves of grief subsided. The last time she wiped her face on her sleeve, she was even able to laugh a bit as she noticed how damp the sleeve was. “Oh shit,” she said out loud as she jumped up and ran to her truck.
She slammed the light button in and killed the headlights. “Oh, please, dear god, Creator, please don’t leave me stuck out here in the woods with Josie and the Eagle. Please, please,” she begged as she turned the key in the ignition. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—a thousand migwetch’es,” she breathed into the air as the truck engine turned over.
She sat there with her head resting on the steering wheel for a bit, then she made sure the truck was in neutral. She got back out of the truck and walked the maple grove, softly touching with her open palm each tree that she had struck with the branch. There was no I’m sorry or Forgive me in her touch, it was a touch of gratitude, a touch of love, a touch of Here I am, I have left a part of me with you.
She heard the trees sing a song to her, a song of sunshine. A song of healing. The trees, in the dark, danced the green and blues of the aurora borealis. Then Cash knew this time in the maple grove was done.
She walked to the truck, put it in gear, and headed out to the main road. She hesitated a moment, then turned east towards Bemidji. When she hit town, she drove down Paul Bunyan Drive, past Paul and his big blue ox Babe. She turned again and crossed the railroad tracks until she saw the flashing neon Hamm’s beer sign in a building that looked more like a deserted storefront than a bar.
When she parked, she could hear the jukebox, the lonely aching tempo of a country two-step drifting across the nighttime air. She figured she had about an hour to closing time. She checked her face in the rearview mirror. The tearstains were dried, the dirt from the woods wiped off. She smoothed her hair down, checked to make sure she had her smokes and got out of the truck. This close to closing time no one was going to care what she looked like anyways. The neon, the soft warmth of the dim lights, the boozy smoke smell—all beckoned. Calling her home.
She ordered a Bud right away, sliding her ID to the bartender without waiting to be asked, put some quarters up on the table and leaned against the wall closest to the pool table, drinking her beer. When her turn was up, she racked the balls, found a semi-straight stick.
She ran the table. Hoots and hollers rose up around the bar. “Oooh, we got us a shark.”
“She’s gonna take your money and run, Chuck.”
“Rack ’em and weep.”
Cash bent over the table, her bridge steady, the crack of the balls as she broke was a pleasing sound, almost as cool as the beer she was drinking. No balls dropped. When she walked back to the ledge where she had set her beer down, a black-haired, long-braids Indian guy, grinning, came and stood by her, saying, “How’s the curves, girl? Your place or mine?”
Cash laughed and walked back to the pool table to run the balls again, sinking the 8-ball by banking it back to the pocket on her left. As she stood waiting for the next sucker to pay and rack, Long Braids came and stood by her again, “We could be partners, you know.” Grinning a grin that meant more than pool.
Cash said, “Alrighty, you break.”
She told the guy who had just racked the balls, “Get yourself a partner and we’ll play you last pocket.” She pointed to the guy with the long braids standing next to her.
She and her new partner held the table until closing time. The beer going down easy. The cigarettes burning long. When the bartender called last call, Long Braids went and got them each two more bottles. She finished one while they played the last game of pool, the second bottle she slipped under her arm inside her jean jacket. Long Braids did the same with his, and they walked out of the bar with Long Braids’ arm around her waist. When he started to steer her down the sidewalk, she led him to her truck. He whistled when he saw it and climbed in the passenger side.
Cash drove back the way she had come until she reached the railroad tracks.
Long Braids fiddled with the radio knob until he found a country station. Cash turned down a gravel street that ran along the railroad tracks and behind a grain elevator that set next to the tracks. She put the truck in park, with the ignition on so the radio kept playing. She lifted the beer bottle from between her thighs where she had been holding it while she drove and took a drink. Long Braids took it from her, put it on the floor of the truck and pulled Cash over to
his side of the truck. He put his hands on both sides of her head, just under her ears and kissed her. “Partners, aye?” he breathed.
The softness and tenderness of the lovemaking made silent tears run down Cash’s cheeks. Long Braids didn’t ask, didn’t comment, just held her tighter and wiped the tears away with his thumbs. After a bit, after Cash’s tears had run themselves dry, she pushed Long Braids up with her hands to his chest, pulled her shirt down and got her jeans up off the floor of the truck. She pulled them on still seated, lifting her pelvis just enough off the seat leather.
“You gonna tell me your name?” he asked.
“Cash. You?”
“J.R.”
Cash cracked up laughing. “Every Indian guy I ever met is named Junior or Chuck.”
“But I’m J.R.”
“Alrighty, J.R. Long Braids.”
“Long Braids?”
“Yeah, Long Braids.”
He pulled her back for another kiss.
“I gotta go.”
“Go? Where you gotta go to tonight?”
“Home.”
“Whose home?” he asked, rubbing his thumb down her jawbone.
“Mine. Just mine. I gotta go.” She slid behind the wheel, pushed the heat knob all the way to high. Soon a blast of warm air filled the truck.
“Where’s home?”
“Fargo. Where you want me to drop you off?”
“I’m staying with my sister over here, about five blocks.”
“You were going to take me to your sister’s?” Cash laughed, backing the truck around.
“She wouldn’t mind. Turn left up there at the feed store.”
Cash drove him to a weathered house, a kid’s trike sitting on the front lawn.
When Cash stopped the truck, he slid over and kissed her again, saying, “She really wouldn’t mind.”
“I gotta go.”
“Fargo, aye?”
“Yep.”
He kissed her one more time, slid over to the passenger side and hopped out. When he got to the top step, he turned and waved. Cash waved back and shifted into first.
She drove straight through to Fargo, arriving at her apartment just as the first rays of light were appearing on the east horizon. She was so tired she used the handrail to pull herself up the stairs. When she opened the screen door, a large envelope fell out. She picked it up and threw it on the kitchen table. Without turning on any lights, she stripped off her jeans and shoes and fell into bed.
When Cash woke up, she rolled over and grabbed the alarm clock, squinted to see the time. The numbers said it was eleven. She rolled back over and folded the pillow around her head. She lay still for a few moments before she peeked out again. She looked over at the window in her room. The shades were drawn, but she could tell it was dark. That didn’t help her any. Why would it still be dark in the morning? She realized it must be night. Damn, she had slept the whole day.
She folded the pillow back around her head and sorted through the previous day—or would that be night? The Day Dodge kids, their parents dead, Long Braids, Josie warning her about drinking, Eagle Straight Walker. Her mind circled back to the Day Dodge kids and their dead parents. Cash wondered if Wheaton had figured out who had killed Tony O yet.
Damn, she had to pee. Cash crawled out of bed, her bare feet hitting the cold linoleum and sending chills up her body.
In the bathroom, she remembered the envelope that had been between the screen door and wooden door of her apartment. She walked out and picked it up. She took it back to bed with her, turned on the lamp and opened it. There was a typewritten note that said, “Sign and go.”
She looked at the rest of the papers. They were papers from the White Earth Chippewa Tribe’s education office. Everything had been filled out, typewritten, in her legal name—Renee Blackbear—with her legal age. Nineteen. Another set of papers, also filled out by typewriter, were enrollment papers for Moorhead State College. Cash didn’t even know how to process the information. She stuffed the whole bunch under her pillow and fell back asleep.
Her sleep this time was restless, Tony O and Josie wandering in and out of her dreams, the kids walking through woods, Eagle’s dancing and cheerleaders at a football game, the stands filled with folks standing and yelling, then back to Josie walking through the maple trees.
When Cash woke up a second time, she could see pale light between the crack of the window shade. It must really be morning this time. She reached over to the dresser to get the alarm clock, but it wasn’t there. She remembered pulling it to the bed earlier and sure enough, there it was under her pillow along with the papers she had looked at the night before. It was seven am.
Cash reached over the bed to the floor and sifted through the clothes until she found a pair of socks. She pulled them on and walked to the bathroom to run hot water in the tub. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Lord, did she look rugged. Eyes puffy from crying, drinking and smoking. Her hair sticking out in all directions, scraggly loops that had come loose from the braid.
She brushed her teeth and felt a little more human. She made sure the door in the kitchen was locked, then went back and crawled into the tub.
Who in the heck had left those papers? Filled them out? And who in hell thought she should go to college? Cash didn’t know that many people. Or, maybe she knew a lot of people, but most of the folks she knew were farm laborers. None of them would have gone to all that trouble. Not any of the guys from the bars she frequented.
Wheaton. That would have to be her best guess, cause Jim would never think of something like Cash going to college. Cash lay in the tub until the water turned lukewarm then drained half the water out and filled it with more hot water.
College. What the heck did folks do at college? Cash didn’t even know anyone who had ever gone to college. Back when she was going to school, a couple of the white kids, the valedictorian and salutatorian who had each given a speech on graduation night, they had gone on to college. But the rest of the farm kids were going to work their daddy’s farm until Daddy died and passed it on to them. The girls were going to marry a farmer, probably the same farm kid they had gone steady with all through high school. In fact, sometimes in Piggly Wiggly, she would run into some of the girls she went to school with. They would have a baby on a hip and sometimes a toddler running alongside them. Cash never knew what to say. Mostly she would just say a quiet hi and keep walking. The mothers had carts that they were filling with groceries, feeding the farm hands on their daddy-in-law’s farms, while Cash walked through the store with her meager purchases tucked under an arm. Maybe a pound of hamburger, for sure eggs and a couple cans of Campbell’s tomato soup, a loaf of bread. A can of Folgers. More often than not the hamburger spoiled before Cash got around to frying it up.
All this thinking about food and shopping made Cash realize the water had once again turned cold and that she was starving. She stood up, grabbed a towel off the rack, quick-dried herself and wrapped the towel around her before going to look in the fridge.
There was nothing inside except a couple eggs in a carton and some beers. As she stood with the fridge door open, she remembered different foster homes. Those fridges were always filled with food. Cheese, eggs, orange juice, yesterday’s beef stew, canned peaches, Tupperware containers full of the weekly leftovers. All of it off-limits to her.
She had compared notes one time at school with another foster girl who was from Leech Lake. If she remembered right, her name was Sue Fox. Maybe Jane Fox. Anyways, the other girl had talked about the full fridge at her foster home and how she wasn’t allowed to just go in and take something, not even the leftovers. Cash had said, “I can’t either. But sometimes I sneak frozen cookies from the freezer late at night. If I get caught, you’ll know by the whip marks on my legs. Or maybe I’ll be wearing tights for two weeks straight to cover the marks.” Both girls had laughed and agreed their foster parents were evil.
Cash shut the fridge door. She needed food. She walked
back into the bathroom and scooped up the clothes she had dropped on the floor. She did the same with the four piles of jeans, undies and socks that circled her bed. Someday she would have to learn to be a little neater.
She dumped the clothes on top of the other dirty clothes in a pile in the corner of the room. She got a fresh set of clothes off the overstuffed chair and clean underwear and socks from the dresser. Unbraided her hair and went back to the kitchen sink to wash it. Too lazy to run a brush or comb through her damp hair, she just twisted it into a bun on top of her head, held in place by a yellow pencil shoved through it.
She stuffed all her laundry into a canvas laundry bag, grabbed a handful of quarters from her top dresser drawer. She put on her jean jacket. It had dirt on the arms and back, either from when the kids had dragged her through the woods or when she had attacked the maples. Either way, it too needed to be washed. She stuffed it in the laundry bag and put on a sweatshirt over her t-shirt. Her tennis shoes were filthy too, so those got stuffed on top of the jean jacket and she put on her cowboy boots.
She pulled the door shut behind her, locked up and walked to the Lost Sock at the end of the block. Only two of the twelve washers were filled. A lone man reading the Fargo Forum was the only other customer. Cash dumped her clothes into two machines, not bothering to sort coloreds from whites, jeans from lighter cottons. In Cash’s mind, if they couldn’t all be washed together she didn’t have any use for them.
Cash went to the little vending machine on the wall that reminded her of the machines in women’s restrooms, but this vending machine gave you laundry soap and bleach, not feminine products. She bought one tiny box of Tide, dumped half in one washer, half in the other, slid her quarters in and waited until she heard the water running into the machine.
Once she knew the machines worked—not always so at the Lost Sock—she walked back to her truck and headed to Shari’s Kitchen. There she sat on a stool at the counter and ordered eggs, pancakes, toast and bacon. She ate without thinking, left a five on the counter when she was finished and drove back to her apartment, walked to the Lost Sock. The whole drive and eating had taken her less than forty-five minutes.
Murder on the Red River Page 11
