by Chuck Redman
“Done!” says the chief, and maybe Lark ought to be insulted that she been traded to these Pawnee scouts for a couple raccoon pelts and a old dog, but her woeful act don’t altogether camouflage a teensy-weensy grin that wants to pluck at the corners of her mouth.
Well, the Pawnee scouts take Lark, do an about-face, and head east at a crisp pace. The Arapahoe decide to turn south, toward friendlier hunting grounds. And that eagle swoops low, scatters a rabbit or two, and flies off to dizzy heights over the big flat muddy river.
She’s in a awful rush. Known fact. You’re gonna have to trust me on this. If you want physical evidence, there ain’t any. You can’t tell by lookin at her, cause her features is no less lifeless than grandmamma’s portrait in some crusty old mansion. And she’d have to smear glue on the soles of her orthopedic sandals to go any slower down these wide cleanswept sidewalks of Platte Avenue. Mosey would be a step up. But Florene is always anxious to get back from lunch whenever Warren R. Kessler’s left in charge. Good shoe salesman, Warren, but not quite executive material.
So be it, rush or no rush, nothin don’t alter Florene’s personality. “Hey, Carol,” says she, pokerfaced, “how’s that new granddaughter of yours?” Granddaughter’s doin fine, and Carol’s got the proof right there on her phone as she stops and hangs her purse and her shopping bags on the fifty cent horsey ride in front of Bide-a-Wee Children’s Wear. That smile might be Florene’s first facial expression of the day.
“I like your tie, Walt,” says Flo as she passes DeVille Pharmacy, “goes better than that beige one. Say hello to Barbara for me.”
“Hi, Eddie!” Florene’s hands, a little like shoe leather themselves, have gone to her hips and she gazes upwards at a massive blond head and wary, roving blue eyes. “How’re you getting along? How’s your aunt?”
“She’s good, Mrs. Wallace, yeah.” Deputy Banacek licks the entire inside of his big lower lip like he’s hankerin for a shot of whisky at high noon, and scans the broad avenue for gunslingers of any hue. “Mom says Aunt Erica’s pelvis is coming along pretty well and she should be up and around soon. Praise the Lord.”
“Is she coming up for reunion next year?”
“That I don’t know, Mrs. Wallace, I—do you have a minute?” His tongue takes another pasty tour inside that lip as he scours every direction for spies, including up. Florene being somewhat less than regulation size, Deputy Banacek loosens his holster belt in order that he can lean from the waist and whisper. Well, Florene don’t register any emotion whatsoever as she’s escorted around the corner toward his patrol car. But Evelyn Westcott seems mighty surprised when she waves at Flo from across the street and don’t get so much as a howdie-do.
He ain’t had major supporting roles in two class plays and a school musical for nothing, and the Cat photographer seems pretty tickled with his half-dozen dramatic headshots of Keith on his living room couch. But the real drama is Mrs. O’Conner at the other end of the couch, whose white fingers cradle her inflamed cheeks and whose eyes plead with the disbelief and the tragedy of a son who just graduated high school and already is halfway down the path to infamy, prison and, almost for sure, the electric chair.
“Ms. Rossiter, we feel that trees—”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“I—I meant I,” says Keith. “We in the abstract.”
“You had friends helping you?” Peg catches the photographer’s eye, and there is contact. I spose when conspiracy is lurking about, it takes one to know one.
“No, I—did this all on my own.” He says it with a Lindbergh kind of smile. His poor mom is shakin her head, not believing what she’s seeing and hearing from her mild-mannered son.
Rossiter nods for a bit, then fixes wide hypnotic eyes on Keith. “You felt desperate. You felt powerless to stop something you believed morally wrong.”
“That’s exactly wha—”
“You were so desperate you were willing to maim a beloved cottonwood in order to save them all from destruction. You were driven to risk your reputation, your future, to protect the abiding values that make our community a special place in America.” For a split second only, she glances down at her recorder on the coffee table next to the gilded picture frame with Keith and his two older sisters dressed up swanky. Keith doesn’t speak, his pale lips hang apart and he nods his wavy head and points a ratifying finger at whatever’s in that little reporter’s notebook in Peg’s hand.
By the time the young man comforts and subdues the pitiful sobbing at the other end of the couch, Rossiter and her photographer are packed up and pert’ner out the door.
With upraised eyes declaring himself neither friendly, unfriendly, nor a speck bothered by the distinction, one of these fellers makes signs for her to fill up her water flask in the cold river like he was doing hisself. Another young feller give her a nice fat corn cake, somethin she ain’t had that much opportunity to partake back home. Lark smiles and looks back over the frothy river she and her fleetfooted escorts’d just forded. Them Arapahos of Chief White Raven is clean out of sight. She blows out a pretty long flurry of air and lets her shoulders unhitch. “Thanking you,” she says in the best Pawnee she can assemble. “I am happy to be find of you.”
Well, nothin happens for a second or two after she speaks, but then them Pawnee scouts do a sharp double-take and some of their tonsils get a rare look at the sun. One big feller walks right up into Lark’s face. “Don’t tell me you’re one of us, Princess, a regular Human Being?” says the fierce warrior, running his hands up the smooth shaved sides of his skull. “That’s not how we heard it. The Arapaho swore you’re a big chief’s daughter. Am I right, boys? They carried you off in a gutsy coup up on the Snake River. Two moons ago, snow on the ground. Said they utterly decimated the toughest and meanest Sioux camp east of the Black Hills. Said their grandchildren will be telling the story to their grandchildren.” He sweeps his proud forehead left and then right and his dozen or so confederates, their sinewy arms encasing hearty chests, exchange severe nods in affirmation of that there gospel.
“My sister Pawnee she!”
Um, that little outburst echoes off the low bluffs, the big dude tilts his head and tries to shake his ears out, and a great gray flock of sandhill cranes launches skyward from across the river. There’s one a them hundred dollar words, ain’t there, if I could just untangle the right cobweb, for a gal that’s got volumes to tell and the guy she’s tellin keeps lookin at his watch. How do you make em listen?
“I some walk to here some days many. Reason for so if help my Pawnee sister.” The big feller, goes by the name of Hill Seeker, shifts his weight once or twice and gives a quizzical look around at his shrugging cohorts. Well somehow or other, somehow, with the preface that there wasn’t no fight and nobody captured nobody, Lark manages to get her story across in fair halting Pawnee. While these Pawnee pathfinders inch up closer, lookin self-conscious and a little like they shoulda peed before they left home, she churns out her whole half-baked plan: which was to find Running Water’s kin and get them to swap herself to the Oglala and return Running Water back to her people before she has to marry old Chief Rain Bear. Hmmmh.
For the last two to three minutes the big rascal has stood stock still, squinting one eye upwards at white drifting streaks, the other eye closed tight, and his open jaw jutting in and out of joint like he’s got the theory of metaphysics almost figured out.
“Say, you talk pretty good Pawnee for a foreigner,” says one of the other young fellers, stepping forward and adjusting the array of scalps fastened to his leggings to their best advantage. “Where did you—”
“Please. Me must of now must of bring to family sister Pawnee. Running Water. Family where? Must of bring. Help to sister. Bad marriage.”
“Listen, Little Sister,” says another Pawnee scout who’s got him a deep husky voice and looks straight up at Lark from a panther-like crouch. He points to the owl feathers sproutin from the narrow scalplock atop his shaved head. “Do you see snow on t
his head?” She looks where he points but don’t seem to savvy. “How many winters line my face? Hmhhh? You’re not getting me.” He turns to his fellows. “She’s not getting me. Look, Little Sister: it takes more winters than you can count to become a chief of the greatest people on the plains. All of us here, we’re just working our way up. Our job is to deliver you to our village, period. The chiefs will take it from there.”
“That’s the point,” says big Hill Seeker, who’s snapped out of whatever stupor he was in, “the chiefs will take it from there.”
“Whatever beef you got,” says Crouching Panther Who Speaks With Deep Voice, which strangely enough happens to be the fella’s name, “you take it up with them.”
“Don’t worry, my little Evening Star. You will be nicely looked after.” This lean young feller has come forward who ain’t been heard from yet, but all his brothers suddenly get quiet and take a step sideways to open a path for the dude. “You don’t need to stand there like a yearling buffalo cornered by wolves.” This feller talks pretty good despite a well-chewed oakwood pipe stuck in his mouth and a nervous twitch of both eyes and the nose along with em. A edgy kind of sidewinder, he imparts a strange fidgety smile around to his onlooking troops, while Lark I guess tries to figger out the dude’s metaphors in her head. She watches him take his pipe out, look kinda long and ironic at the cold tobacco in its carved stone bowl, and then cast the same look among his men. The chipper young fella who gave pretty fair marks to Lark in Introductory Pawnee, well they call him Little Brother and Little Brother jumps to attention, pulls two chunks of pyrite from his pouch, and within seconds has sparked enough tinder to give a good glow to that pipe notwithstanding the twitchy hand that grasps it.
Now, while he puffs his pipeful and seems to simmer down some, I don’t know if this antsy dude purposely brandishes his long war lance in Lark’s face or if he’s just slightly forgetful, but he’s got her attention, that’s one thing. “Ah,” he says, “I see you’re curious about my trophies, Evening Star.” Yup, from the throat of the man’s spearhead dangle a pair of scalps, swaying in the river-scented breeze. The same breeze, matter of fact, that sifts through the blackness of Lark’s shouldered hair.
“My name no Evening Star. Name from me was—”
“Oh. No, no, you misconstrue. I was only greeting the evening star, Little Sister. See,” says he pointing and just barely twitching, “she sits in the west as we speak.” While Lark turns a hasty glance toward the dipping sun where Venus is in fact closely hovering, this lean Pawnee lieutenant known as Left Hand winks at his men. And there was a pretty droll joke in there somewhere, if their reaction’s any gauge. “Since you’re so curious, I won’t keep you in anticipation any longer, Little Sister. This,” he says jabbing an index finger at a dangling scalp with long stringy gray hair, “was an old woman of the Cheyenne. She was hiding her grandson in her bosom. This,” and he shifts his finger to the tiny curly scalp sharing his lancehead, “was the grandson.”
If you think any of that was lost in translation, then you ain’t seen Lark’s eyes. Or heard the clutch in her throat as she states, after a prayer-like silence, that the Cheyenne are her people’s friends.
Left Hand smiles as he shoulders his lance, checks his gear, and rises to his full height. His comrades take the cue and no more’n ten seconds later the whole patrol is ready to make tracks. “You are our honored guest, Little Sister. That’s all you really need to know.”
Them big graceful cranes float back down to their northbound restin place and Lark and her bodyguards kick out hup-two on their eastward march like it’s crosscountry season at the varsity state finals and the crack of the starter pistol just broke an unbearable tension.
“No, Ida,” says Florene, gliding a low-heeled pump onto Ida Sweetzer’s right 7½ narrow, “that was Gil Mason, Dan’s older brother. Gil’s the one who married Owen Stanley’s second oldest daughter who sold carpeting at Wacklund’s for a while. Dan’s married to that Carla Lanterman from North Platte. She—well anyway, Dan was gettin a detail job on his Camero over at Stickler’s Detail, and Merv Stickler was selling new seat covers to Susie Lapides, and Dan overheard Susie tell Merv that—oh, hey Janet.”
The funny thing is, Janet come right through that front door of Florene’s store without so much as a tinkle from that little bell. It don’t seem possible, even Flo herself on a slow day can’t come and go without a jingle of some sort. But then, this ain’t the Janet I know. This Janet has got me worried to the gills. With her pasty cheeks and lost eyes. Florene signals to Janet to sit herself down and wait til she’s free, and I’ll be darned if the news gal doesn’t do just that, without a peep of protest. Almost—not quite but almost—like a marionette let go of by some little kid that’s cranky and ready for her nap. That’s the sorry picture this Janet calls to mind, settin there astraddle one of Florene’s fitting stools and waitin for somebody, or some thing, to snap some life into her. Pulling strings may not be enough.
The sun is sank low in the peaked sky. Fingers of it poke through young leaves and old branches to the floor. Not every Pawnee shaves the sides of his head so fierce, cause this stocky fella with shoulders like a stevadore has his hair growed out long, and loose. Which is good right about now since that fresh doeskin poultice plastered across his puffed and purpled cheekbone ain’t such a wonderful thing to behold. This here’s a small clearing. Sheltered between two tall beauties, a cottonwood on the south and an elm on the north. Imagine what these two trees have seen and shared over the years. Somewhere close by a dove sits still and thoughtful, and rehearses its ageless cradlesong that lullabies me surer than any sound, animal, human or otherwise.
Somebody’s gone and shot two arrows into the ground: one at the foot of each of them tall trees. This fella gazes down meditatively. All at once he seizes his hatchet and looks to be aiming a hefty, violent blow at the cottonwood, muttering low and blasphemous. The hatchet freezes midswing, the fella lets out a grunt of anguish. For there’s sounds. Footsteps and human forms movin down nearer the river. Can’t see much through the growth but one of them shadows moves a little too willowy and wispy and not nothin like a Pawnee brave oughta move. Maybe there’s too much sun in the eyes or his swollen cheek has started in throbbing. Or maybe the man don’t much care for the little glimpses that smite him through the leaves and branches, in this lush green thread of river stitched across the broad unfurled prairie. I can’t really say but. Fella strikes me, as he stumbles back and scowls darkly at the two arrow tips, as somebody who takes things a bit too serious. He throws his thick hands in the air and turns to go.
One of his moccasins don’t, it catches and gets left behind on a wild current vine and the fella hops around on one foot for a few seconds until he can yank that moccasin free. No sooner does he get hisself re-shod than he heads out of the clearing. Well, everything’s probly—hey young feller look out for that—
Badger hole.
It’s nice when you feel comfortable enough with someone that you can tell them things. Personal things. Like don’t panic but you’ve got a big gristly wad of pork stuck in your braces, for instance. And if you can tell em all that without words, just sending meaningful eye signals from across the table and arching your upper lip in the right place so’s she’ll catch on pretty quick of what the situation is and which tooth her tongue oughta check out before she smiles or anything, well that just shows what good friends you’ve become and how dang well you know each other. It’s nice, that’s all.
Well, it’s also kinda fortunate that, except for saying how much they like interning for Mr. Cosetti and how much they’ve learned, interns don’t have to speak much when they’re out to dinner with their boss and The Greater Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce executive director and the chairman of the board and his wife. The young ladies can pretty much just sit awestruck and watch the conversation like it’s reality television, only it’s commercial-free. Or is it?
“Excuse me, I’ll be right—” says the young
lady with dark hair and braces, barely opening her mouth and a little flushed around the eyes. Her fair-haired roommate watches her go toward the ladies’ room, and I guess flushes are kinda like yawns. Come to think of it, there really ain’t no ladylike way to dislodge a thick chewy strand of ribmeat from your braces while you’re settin at the table.
Best table in the house, by the way, at the big southern window. Each table made from the planks of actual cattle ramps dismantled from the old Sioux City stockyards. Sure it’s a little pricey, but The Rib Retreat is worth every shekel. Well, those’re Milt’s words, every time he brings Estelle for lunch. The words that Cosetti uses are “I can’t say enough about these spareribs.” He’s said it about three times. He ain’t got nothin stuck in his teeth.
“I wish you could see the nighttime view,” says Kelly Waligorski, the chamber’s executive director, and then she glances at Cosetti’s eyepatch and her face turns kinda appalled, like someone just kicked her under the table. Which, though he may be a pushy guy I don’t think Reeves Palmer the board chairman would kick somebody under the table for bad word choice. “It’s early yet. Heh, heh.” That’s not Kelly’s real laugh.
Well, Reeves finds a corner of his napkin that don’t have barbeque sauce and wipes off his fingertips and his mustache. “Steve,” he says, “from up here at the top of this hill you get a view of the whole brilliant span of Cottonwood. And growing every year. If you were to drive into town from up north some evening and come over that hill, you’d see a sight—. Well, no disrespect to Omaha, it’s a fine city but I don’t think even a big city like Omaha can match our dazzling view. Like a big twinkling Christmas tree: Cottonwood by night.”
