Sandro studied the photographs closely for several minutes, then said, “Your girls look a bit like Mom, don’t you think?”
“Yes, our real mother. Katia. You know? I thought so, too.” Then he said, “I think your life has turned around now, Sonny. Nothing but good things for you and Val, from now on.”
“Hopefully. But I don’t dare tempt fate,” Sandro admitted, handing the photos back. “You know, I think Val would love to take a trip down there sometime. Maybe next year.”
“Great! I’ll look forward to showing you around.”
“You mentioned yesterday that you’d done some writing. Have you had anything published?”
“Yes, I have two books out now. One about my ‘adventures’ in the AIM movement, and also a book of short stories about Vietnam.”
“Can we get a copy or two?” Sandro was curious, despite feeling a little jealous that his brother had accomplished so much. You have too, don’t denigrate yourself!
Cal laughed. “As a matter of fact, I brought a few copies with me, just in case. And I’ve got about a hundred of them in storage at home.”
Chapter 20
Family Confrontation
Nervous and excited, Lisa had been waiting anxiously since her brother Cal had telephoned to tell her he and Sonny were coming over to visit. She hadn’t seen Cal since she was eight years old, and had only seen Sonny recently at the hardware store that day when he hadn’t spoken to her. Hardly able to concentrate, she had managed to focus enough to freshen up and was preparing a snack for them when Tom and Marybeth drove up.
“We’ve been up in Black Rock, visiting Wayne Howard and thought we’d drop in to see you on the way back,” Marybeth told her when Lisa invited them inside.
“I’m expecting my brothers, Sonny and Cal. If you can stay a few minutes, I’ll introduce you. I haven’t seen Cal since I was about eight years old.”
“That’s wonderful! You must be so excited,” Marybeth observed.
“Actually, Lisa, we wanted to ask you what you might know about Wayne Howard.” Tom explained. “He’s living in an up-scale mental home up in Black Rock, a place called Pleasant Valley Haven. We know he was one of your Dad’s close friends, and thought you might remember him.”
At that moment her brothers arrived. After much hugging and some tears, they all sat down in the small living room where Lisa introduced them to Marybeth and Tom as her long-lost brothers.
“You know Sonny, I think,” she said.
“You came up from Rosebud?” Tom asked Cal.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“We heard it somewhere. By the way, I’m Chippewa, from over at Mille Lacs.”
“Good to know. I figured you for ‘one of us’.”
“Thought I’d mention it. In case it matters.”
“It doesn’t,” Sandro said dryly.
“It’s always ‘good to know’, Sonny,” Cal said.
While Lisa handed around snacks and drinks, Tom mentioned he and Marybeth were trying to solve an old arson case.
“We think we may have found the culprit,” Marybeth told them.
Too late! Tom thought, I should have warned her not to say anything.
“Really?” Sonny seemed surprised.
“We maybe shouldn’t be telling you this,” Tom said, hoping Marybeth would keep her trap shut. “We have no real proof just yet, but we may have narrowed it down to an old friend of your Dad’s, name of Wayne Howard. We wondered if you might remember anything about him. He became Fire Marshal or Fire Inspector back when your Dad was Chief. He doesn’t seem the type, to tell you the truth. But he’s an old man now, so maybe back then he was.”
“I remember him, alright,” Cal said, sharply. “Shifty, sly. I could never figure out why Ben would have anything to do with him. He was always sniffing around Mom. Acted like he thought he was Ben’s equal, which he wasn’t. No way near it.”
Sonny spoke up. “I vaguely remember Mom being outraged, something about ‘that man’ becoming Fire Marshal. She was quite upset. She and Dad had a tiff over it. She told him she didn’t want ‘that creep’ hanging around her or Marilyn. Dad didn’t seem too concerned about him, though. Kept saying he was an old friend and he owed him loyalty or something.”
“I don’t have any knowledge of how or why this Howard person became Fire Marshal,” Lisa told them. “To tell the truth, I don’t remember him at all.”
“Apparently he lived in the same apartment building, the unit just below the one where Marilyn and Frannie lived,” Marybeth said. “It seems he was evicted the week before the fire happened.”
Cal suddenly stood, walked over to the door and motioned for Tom to follow him into the kitchen.
“We came over here to tell Lisa about Sandro and Frannie. She doesn’t know – yet. You know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah. I guess you’d like to talk to her privately.”
“If you don’t mind. It’s pretty sensitive.”
“For sure.”
Back in the living room, Tom announced, “Well, you folks have a great reunion. Marybeth and I need to get back to the office. Hopefully, we’ll see you again, Cal, before you go back down south. And no doubt we’ll be seeing you again, too, Sonny — sorry, Sandro. You and Val. Come on, Marybeth, let’s go.”
Surprised, Marybeth got to her feet and hugged Lisa. “Yes, let’s all get together soon.” Before she left, she gave Lisa Ben’s typewritten document. “You might want this,” she whispered.
When they had left, Lisa commented, “That was weird. They left in such a hurry.”
“I asked them to.” Cal told her.
“Oh, how come?”
So: Cal told Lisa how sorry he was not to have stayed in touch and how upset he was when he heard that Ben and their Mother had died. He hugged her and told her he’d missed her, then said, “We have something else to talk to you about, Lisa.”
“I know you’re my half-brothers, already, Cal. Val told me but I already knew. I read that thing Dad wrote. I was surprised, shocked and doubtful. But I talked to Father Dwyer and he told me it was basically true about your mother and everything. And you know what? I’m so glad!” She hugged them both. “I love you and I’m so happy you’re my real brothers and we’re together again, at long last.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What thing Dad wrote?” Sonny exclaimed. “The only thing I saw that Dad wrote, was that damned thing blaming me for some fire!”
“No, that’s not the one,” Lisa replied, hurt by his anger. “You didn’t see the one about you guys coming to live with us? The one about you running away? The one where he says he regrets he didn’t acknowledge you as his sons?”
“No, I didn’t,” Sonny insisted angrily. “Admit we were his real sons? He’d never do that! Not Ben! Where is this so-called letter, anyway?”
Thank goodness she gave it back to me! Lisa realized she’d better not mention that she’d turned it over to Marybeth and Tom, knew that Sonny would likely be incensed.
“Did you know that Dad had a daughter with Aunt Marilyn?” Cal asked her, trying to divert Sonny’s anger.
Clearly astonished, Lisa exclaimed, “No! I most certainly did not!” Now she was the one to be angry.
“Well, he did,” Sonny declared emphatically, not understanding why he suddenly wanted to hurt her. “They had a daughter, Frannie, about your age.”
“I don’t think I want to hear this,” Lisa remembered her conversation with Marybeth and Tom about her aunt, days before. “Why should I believe you anyway? You hated Dad. You both did. You’d say anything to make him look bad. He was heartbroken when you left. You never thought of us, how hurt we were when you left!”
“Dad hated us,” Sonny replied. “He was glad when we left. Now, what about that letter? Where is it?”
“Not true, both he and Mom were devastated. Here, read this,” she said curtly, handing Sonny the envelope containing Ben’s story of their adoption. “This proves he loved you.”
>
“This is the one you were talking about? Where’d you get it?”
“It’s the one. It was in Dad’s papers. Lisa’s got a whole box with stuff about you and Cal.”
The two men sat down together to read Ben’s story.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes, trying to come to terms with what they’d read. Sonny, with tears in his eyes, folded the sheets of paper and shoved them into his shirt pocket.
He didn’t know what to believe. He felt his foundation had been yanked out from under him, every thought, every feeling of Ben, his ‘father’, cast in doubt, no longer valid. He reached for his ‘puffer’– a natural instinct when he was feeling upset – then suddenly realized he didn’t need it. That’s strange!
“He probably didn’t even write it. It’s probably a fake. Since when did he type, anyway?”
“He typed. And I believe this is his writing. It sounds like him.” Cal declared, dismissing the subject. “Anyway, let’s get back to Frannie.”
Sonny agreed reluctantly, but got right to the point. “I met Frannie when we were both in high school. We fell in love. I didn’t know she was Dad’s daughter and she didn’t know I was his son. We didn’t know we were related.”
“I don’t believe this!” Lisa cried. “It’s outrageous! You’re making it up! What you’re saying is unbelievable!”
“It is a big shock, I know,” Cal agreed, leaning across to pat her arm, which she snatched away out of his reach.
“Don’t touch me! I guess you’d better tell me. About Aunt Marilyn?”
“Dad had an affair with her.”
“So you say.”
“Well, I guess without her actually telling you, we can’t prove it, but…” Cal sympathized.
“Unbelievable! What this about a daughter?”
“Her name is Frannie. She’s about your age. And, as I told you, she and I fell in love. She got pregnant and...”
“Oh, my, God!”
“Wait Lisa, that’s not the worst of it,” Cal interjected.
Once again, Sonny took up the story. “Do you remember that fire in 1968? When Dad had that heart attack? The one where he rescued a young woman and her baby? It was in all the papers… Well, that was Frannie and our baby, Nichole.”
“But that baby died…” Lisa choked, trying not to cry.
“Yes,” Sonny said, tears welling in his eyes. “And that’s when I found out Frannie was my sister. After that fire.”
“Where is she now? What happened to her?” Lisa managed to ask. “She’s my sister, too! I need to know.”
“Marilyn took her back up to Canada and I never saw her again.” Sonny sighed.
Then, looking at his watch, wanting desperately to escape the intensely emotional scene, he announced, “I should get home. Val will be waiting for me.”
“Oh, no you don’t! You go and get her and bring her back here. The kids’ll be home shortly. Peter too. We’ll have dinner, all of us. I don’t want to let you two out of my sight. Ever again!”
Chapter 21
Wounded Knee and Other Tales
After dinner, while the twins, Sami and Jack, sat on the floor at his feet, listening wide-eyed, Cal related his experiences with AIM. Val and Sonny sat cuddled on the sofa, with their dog, while Lisa sat in an easy chair, her son, Peter, lounging against her knees.
“What is AIM?” Peter asked, when Cal first mentioned the word.
“AIM means American Indian Movement, a group that was originally formed to help urban Indians who were being hassled by police in Minneapolis. Eventually they tried to reform Indian and government relations country-wide, but it all began in Minnesota.”
Pausing for a moment to let that sink into the young minds, he looked at his siblings and asked, “I don’t suppose you ever heard of the Trail of Broken Treaties, did you?”
“Wasn’t that the brouhaha in Washington?” Lisa asked.
“What’s a brouhaha, Mom?” Sami asked.
“A big, messy confusion was what it was,” Sonny interjected.
“The Trail of Broken Treaties was originally conceived by AIM to highlight the concerns of North American native peoples,” Cal explained. “Almost 900 travelled across the country, stopping at reservations, adding to their numbers as they went, all the way to Washington, D.C. They wanted to bring the condition of the Indians to the attention of the government. They thought that a march would be the way to get a lot of publicity.
“Naïve, of course. Unfortunately, all their organizing broke down when they got there. Housing that had been set up somehow became unavailable; meals that had been arranged for, suddenly weren’t there. Everything went wrong. Some of the people, excited and expecting success, became angry at the failures, ended up marching, then taking over the Bureau of Indian Affairs building for six days. It was a brouhaha, Lisa. Worse, in fact.
“Disappointed and incensed because their grievances weren’t being seriously addressed by the government, some of them ran amok. The building was ransacked, BIA property was stolen and/or destroyed and many valuable documents were removed. Because of the loss of the paperwork, payments to the bands could not be made. It was a bad move, a real mess. The government finally pledged to deal with the various grievances of the Native Americans in order to get their various elements out of Washington.”
“Geez! When was this, Uncle Carmine?” Peter asked.
“November of 1972.”
“Did you go there, Uncle Carmine?” Jack asked.
“No, I didn’t get involved in that particular exercise. I was busy with other things at the time,” Cal answered. “What do you know about Wounded Knee?” he asked the children.
“Was that when the U.S. Cavalry attacked and killed a whole bunch of Indians?” Jack asked. He’d heard about it in History class at school.
“Yes. That was on December 29, 1890 – approximately 100 years ago, Jack. By the time the battle was over, more than 300 men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux lay dead. Only about twenty-five troops died and some of them were likely killed by ‘friendly fire’.”
“What’s ‘friendly fire’, Uncle Cal? “ asked Sami.
“That’s when your own soldiers end up shooting you by accident. Sometimes things are so confused, the wrong people get shot.”
“The wrong people always get shot, one way or the other,” Val remarked. Lisa agreed.
“Anyway, it was a massacre. What happened was this: the 7th Cavalry surrounded an encampment of Miniconjou and Hunkpapa Sioux with orders to escort them to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. They were putting them on reservations there, land set aside for them to use. The day before, the Sioux had given up, willingly agreeing to turn themselves in at the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota. They were the very last of the Sioux to give in, but the 7th Cavalry intended to use a display of force, coupled with firm negotiations, to gain compliance from them. The commander had been ordered to disarm the Lakota before proceeding. During the process, a deaf tribesman refused an order to give up his rifle unless he was paid fair value for it. This set off a chain reaction leading to sheer chaos and mayhem, with fighting between both sides, in all directions. Around 150 Lakota are believed to have fled the chaos, an unknown number dying later from hypothermia. Pretty bad, huh?”
“It was a long time ago,” Sonny said. “It’s time we forgot all this old stuff.”
“Many of our people wouldn’t agree with you, Sandro.”
“So, where was the Wounded Knee you were at, Unc? Not that old one?” Jack asked. He’d been hanging on to his Uncle’s every word. “Did you shoot anybody?”
“Luckily, no I didn’t, Jack. It’s not something I’d be proud about. But a few people were killed.
“It happened in 1973, and came about because of several seemingly disconnected incidents. There had been a couple of murders. First, Ray Yellow Thunder in Nebraska and a year later, Wesley Bad Heart Bull, in South Dakota. People in those communities down there were dissatisfied with how t
he cases against the perpetrators were handled. AIM got involved. The U.S. government now viewed AIM as a militant group and was closely watching our activities. Truth to tell, some of our leaders had been in jail, but not for anything really serious. Stuff like stealing cars, not that I’m saying it’s okay. But that was used as an excuse to disregard AIM and it’s mission.
“On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Sioux leaders requested AIM assistance in their opposition to a tribal president, Richard Wilson, whom they had elected in 1972. They accused him of mishandling tribal funds, misusing his authority and disregarding rules of the tribal council. They tried, unsuccessfully, in February of 1973, to impeach him. The U.S. Department of Justice sent out 50 U.S. Marshals to be available in case of civil disobedience. They were supporting Wilson.”
“The government sent soldiers against our people?” Lisa enquired, horrified.
“Well, not soldiers, not yet, but it was certainly viewed that way by a lot of reservation Indians.” Cal answered. “The problem was, if we did anything at all, it would be (and was) viewed as civil disobedience, and they’d be on us like vultures.”
“So what happened next?” Jack asked, impatient with discussion, wanting his uncle to continue telling the action.
“AIM and about 200 supporters, who were en route to Porcupine, South Dakota, stopped at the Village of Wounded Knee and took over the trading post, museum, gas station and several churches there. They viewed the village as historically significant – a good place to voice their concerns; those of AIM and the Oglala Sioux of Pine Ridge.”
“Who are Oglala Sioux?” Sami asked.
“Okay. Does everyone want a little history about the Sioux?” Cal asked, looking around the room. When he could see everyone had agreed, he continued. “The Sioux, sometimes called Dakota, consisted of seven tribes, in three major divisions. We are concerned here with the third, or western division, sometimes referred to as the Lakota, or Tetons, who were originally a single band. Eventually they divided into seven sub-bands, which included the Hunkpapa Sioux, the Blackfoot and the Oglala Sioux. Confusing, I know but we’ll just call them the Oglala.
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