The Night Watchman

by Louise Erdrich

  “No government commodities.”

  “I could buy my own food with that land money.”

  “By law, you wouldn’t be an Indian.”

  “Law can’t take my Indian out of me.”

  “Maybe. What about when your land money runs out. What then?”

  “I live for the day.”

  “You’re the kind of Indian they’re looking for,” said Thomas.

  “I’m a drunk.”

  “That’s what we’ll all be if this goes through.”

  “Let it go through then!”

  “Money would kill you, Eddy.”

  “Death by whiskey? Eh, niiji?”

  Thomas laughed. “An uglier way to go than you think. What about how it will affect all the old people, people who want to keep their land. Think about it, niiji.”

  “I know you got a point,” said Eddy. “I just don’t want to take your point right now.”

  Eddy went off, still talking. He lived alone on his father’s allotment in a little shack. Even the tar paper on it was flapping loose. The reservation was dry so he’d gone half blind from a bad batch of bootleg. When Juggie Blue made chokecherry wine, she always gave a jar to Eddy to keep him from the bootlegger. In winter, Thomas sent Wade over on their remaining horse to see if Eddy was alive, to chop wood for him if he was. In the old days, Thomas and his friend Archille had gone to bush dances along with Eddy, who could fiddle like an angel or a devil no matter how much he drank.

  * * *

  Most people built close to the main road, but the Wazhashk farm was set at the end of a long curved drive, just over a grassy rise. The old house was two stories high and made of hand-adzed oak timbers, weathered gray. The new house was a snug government cottage. Wazhashk had bought the old house along with the allotment back in 1880, before the reservation was pared down. He’d been able to buy it because the land needed a well. Another story, that well. Ten years ago, the family had qualified for the government house, which had thrilled them when it appeared, pulled on a heavy-duty trailer. In winter, Thomas, Rose, her mother, Noko, and a changing array of children besides their own who were still at home slept in the snug new house. Today was warm enough for Thomas to take his rest in the old house. He parked the Nash and emerged, craving the moment he would lie down beneath the heavy wool quilt.

  “Don’t you go sneaking out on me again!”

  Rose and her mother were arguing, and he considered slipping into the old house right then. But Rose leaned out the door and said, “You’re home, old man!” She had a delicate smile. She slammed her way back into the house, but even so, Thomas knew her weather was good. He always checked the weather of Rose before he made a move. Today was blustery but cheerful, so he came in the door. The toddlers Rose was taking care of were babbling in the big crib. There were two iced cinnamon rolls for him on the table. A bowl of oatmeal. Someone’s chickens were still laying and there was an egg. Rose was toasting two slices of bread in lard and as he sat down she dropped them on his plate. He dipped water from the last full can.

  “I’ll fetch water when I wake up,” he said.

  “We need it right now.”

  “I am beat. Right down to the ground.”

  “Then I’ll wait the washing.”

  This was a big concession. Rose used a tub with a crank paddle, and liked to do her washing early so that she could take full advantage of the sun’s drying power. Thomas squeezed love for himself out of her sacrifice, and ate with emotion.

  “My sweetheart,” he said.

  “Sweetheart this, sweetheart that,” she grumbled.

  He got himself out the door before she reconsidered the washing.

  Sun flooded the sleeping floor of the old house. A few late flies banged against the window glass, or died buzzing around in circles on the floor. The top of the quilt was warm. Thomas removed his trousers and folded them along the creases to renew their sharpness. He kept a pair of long underwear pants under the pillow. He slipped them on, hung his shirt over a chair, and rolled under the heavy blanket. It was a quilt of patches left over from the woolen coats that had passed through the family. Here was his mother’s navy blue. It had been made from a trade wool blanket and to a blanket it had returned. Here were the boys’ padded plaid wool jackets, ripped and worn. These jackets had surged through fields, down icy hills, wrestled with dogs, and been left behind when they took city work. Here was Rose’s coat from the early days of their marriage, blue-gray and thin now, but still bearing the fateful shape of her as she walked away from him, then stopped, turned, and smiled, looking at him from under the brim of a midnight-blue cloche hat, daring him to love her. They’d been so young. Sixteen. Now married thirty-three years. Rose got most of the coats from the Benedictine Sisters for working in their charity garage. But his own double-breasted camel coat was bought with money he’d earned on the harvest crews. The older boys had worn it out, but he still had the matching fedora. Where was that hat? Last seen in its box atop the highboy dresser. His review of the coats with their yarn ties, all pressing down on him in a comforting way, always put him to sleep as long as he rushed past Falon’s army greatcoat. That coat would keep him awake if he thought too long about it.

  Thomas left his last conscious thoughts on his father’s old coat, brown and quiet. Down the hill, across the slough, over the picked-bare furrows of the fields, through the birch and oak woods, there was the narrow grass road that passed between their lands and led to the door of his father’s house. His father was so very old now that he slept most of the day. He was ninety-four. When Thomas thought of his father, peace stole across his chest and covered him like sunlight.

  The Boxing Coach

  Lloyd Barnes’s brightest math student fought under the name Wood Mountain. He had graduated last year, but still trained at the gym Barnes had set up in the community center garage. It was said the young man would be famous if he could keep away from spirits. Barnes himself, a big man with thick, strawlike blond hair, trained alongside his boxing club of students. They went three and three—skipping rope for three minutes, rest, three minutes, rest, three more. That’s how Barnes had set up all of the exercises. Intervals, like the rounds they would fight. He sparred with the boys himself, so he could coach them on skills. Barnes had learned to box in Iowa from his uncle, Gene “the Music” Barnes, an unusual presence in the ring. Barnes had never been sure whether his uncle, a bandleader, got the nickname because of his day job, from his habit of humming while he danced at his opponents, or because he was an excellent boxer and the sports pages invariably declared that so-and-so was slated to “face the Music.” Barnes had never gone as far as his uncle, and after a serious knockout had decided teachers’ training school in Moorhead was his destiny. He’d gone to school on the G.I. Bill and what loans he’d had to take out were forgiven once he signed up to work on the reservation. He’d transferred three times, from Grand Portage to Red Lake, from Red Lake to Rocky Boy, and had been in the Turtle Mountains now for two years. He liked the place. Plus he had an eye on a Turtle Mountain woman and was hoping she would notice him.

  Last weekend, Barnes had been in Grand Forks watching Kid Rappatoe fight Severine Boyd in a Golden Gloves match. Skipping rope with his students now, he mulled over how Boyd and Rappatoe came out of their corners popping swipes at each other like cats. They were both so fast that neither could connect more than a grazing punch. For five rounds it was like that—dazzling motions, clinch, step apart, then they started dabbing the air again. Rappatoe was famous for wearing down his opponent, but Boyd usually went the distance and hardly broke a sweat. During round six Boyd did something that Barnes thought was questionable, but admired just the same. Boyd stepped back, dropped his guard, hitched his trunks, gave Rappatoe a blank look just as he slid off an untelegraphed long-range left jab that snapped back Rappatoe’s head. All along, Boyd had been leading up to this with fakes. Dropping his guard at odd times. Pretending there was a problem with his trunks. And those blank looks. E
very so often, like he was maybe having a spell. They seemed like harmless tics until Boyd came under Rappatoe’s guard with another left, this one to the body, and then a right to the head that dropped Rappatoe momentarily, stopped his momentum permanently, and won Boyd the match.

  Sitting ringside, Barnes had turned to Reynold Jarvis, the English teacher, who was also in charge of putting on school dramas.

  “We need a drama coach,” said Barnes.

  “You need more equipment,” said Jarvis.

  “We’re raising money for gloves now.”

  “And a speed bag? A heavy bag?”

  “Burlap, sawdust. And a couple old tires.”

  “Okay. I see. Drama could be helpful.”

  Many things, including strength and even stamina, could be faked. Or even more important, many things could be hidden. For instance, one of Barnes’s most promising kid boxers, Ajijaak, looked like his namesake heron. He was like Barnes himself, lean and tall, so nervous he seemed to tremble. Ajijaak held himself with an air of meek apology. But the boy had a startling left jab and shorebird reach. Then there was Pokey Paranteau, who was all raw talent with no focus. Revard Stone Boy, Calbert St. Pierre, Dicey Asiginak, Garnet Fox, and Case Allery, all coming along very well. Wade Wazhashk was working on his mother to let him box in a match. He, too, was promising, although he had no instinct. Thinking was good, but Wade thought twice before he punched. Barnes spent a lot of time driving the boys to matches with other towns—off-reservation towns where the crowds broke out fake war whoops and jeers when their hometown favorite lost. He drove the boys home after matches, and after practice, which lasted long after the school bus had gone out.

  Right now, the boys were lifting weights all wrong. Barnes straightened them out. He didn’t like to put too much weight on the left because his goal was to develop in each boy a left jab as fast as the opening to the Music’s fabled “surprise symphony,” a powerful, unpredictable flurry of strikes that had once forced Ezzard Charles onto the ropes. Well, of course, that was before Charles went big-time, then to the top. The Music had been a subtle fighter who eventually connected with a brawler who burst his spleen.

  Wood Mountain had taken a welding class, and had made weights for the club by filling cans of all sizes with sand and welding them back together. The weights had come out unevenly so the boys lifted 1½-, 3-, 7¼-, 12-, 18-, and 23-pound cans of sand for strength. But for speed Barnes did things differently.

  “Now watch,” he said.

  He made a fist of his right hand and pressed his knuckles to the wall.

  “Do like me.”

  All the boys made fists and did the same.

  “Pressure, pressure,” said Barnes. Again he pressed his fist against the wall, thatch of hair flopping down his forehead, until the muscles along his forearm began to burn. “Harder. . . . Okay, let up.”

  The boys stepped back, wringing their hands.

  “Now the left.”

  The trick was to develop only the proper muscles to fill out the punch. The Music had been obsessed with speed and stealth. He had also taught Barnes mental tricks. Barnes signaled for break time. The boys lined up at the porcelain water fountain, then stood around him.

  “Speed drills,” said Barnes. “Now I want each of you to name the fastest thing you can think of.”

  “Lightning,” said Dicey.

  “Snapping turtle,” said Wade, who had been bitten by one.

  “Rattlesnake,” said Revard, whose family went back and forth to Montana.

  “A sneeze,” said Pokey, which made everyone laugh.

  “A big sneeze,” said Barnes, “an explosion! That’s how you want your punch. No warning. Now picture it, each of you, fastest thing you never saw. Shadowbox. Three minutes on. Three off. Like always.”

  Barnes took out his stopwatch and prowled behind them as they feinted, punched combinations, feinted, punched again. He stopped Case, tapped his arm.

  “Don’t flare that elbow! See your jab a mile off!”

  He nodded at their progress.

  “Do not draw your arm back! Do not!”

  He himself threw punches toward Pokey, teaching him not to flinch. Barnes knew where that came from. And who.

  He had them run interval sprints, then a few slow laps to cool down. Calbert and Dicey lived close enough to walk. The rest piled into Barnes’s car. On the way to their houses, he talked about how Boyd had beaten Rappatoe. He couldn’t make it sound right. He couldn’t give the picture.

  “We need Mr. Jarvis to show you,” he finally said.

  Pokey was always the last to be dropped off. His house was farthest, and off the road, but Barnes insisted on driving down the path even though he’d have to back out. At first it was because he knew about Paranteau, wanted to make sure Pokey was okay. Then he saw Pixie. Now Barnes drove down the road because there was always a chance he’d see Pixie chopping wood. Pixie. Those eyes!

  Barnes made it back to the teachers’ dining hall just after the food was cleared away. He lived in “bachelor’s quarters,” a small white bungalow beneath a cottonwood tree. The female teachers, and other government employees, lived in a two-story brick building with four generously proportioned rooms on the second floor, two on the first floor, plus a communal kitchen, and a recreation area in the substantial basement with a small room for the caretaker/cook, Juggie Blue. She was washing dishes and getting ready to mop her way out of the kitchen, which she always did at 7 p.m. Juggie was a stocky, well-muscled, shrewd-looking woman in her forties. She was on the tribal advisory council with Thomas. Like Barnes, she was always trying to give up cigarettes, which meant that when they slipped, they slipped together. But not tonight. Or probably not. He was working with Wood Mountain later.

  Juggie always kept a heaped plate of dinner warm for him. Now she slid a pie plate out of the warming oven in her beloved six-burner cooking range. The range had not one, not two, but three ovens with black speckled enamel interiors and stainless-steel racks. It had been hauled up from Devils Lake at Juggie’s insistence. She had clout with Superintendent Tosk. The expensive range allowed her to bake several items at the same time, and even slow-cook one of her famous beef stews. She made the stew in an ancient Dutch oven, brought overland by an ox team in the last century, using an entire bottle of her own chokecherry wine, and carrots bought from Thomas, who buried them for the winter in his cellar, deep in a bin of sand. She coaxed things from everyone on the reservation. Which was odd, because she was entirely lacking in charm.

  “Potpie,” she said, and went back to fill her mop bucket.

  Oh god. Barnes was hungry. He was always hungry. And potpie was his favorite, or second or third favorite, of her reliables. She used lard from St. John in the rich crust, and got her chickens over the border from a Hutterite colony. The Pembina potatoes, which she picked every year herself, and hoarded, were small and new because it was September. The carrots were perfectly cooked through but not mushy. The lightly salted golden gravy. The soft tiles of onions, browned first. She had sprinkled in a liberal amount of Zanzibar pepper. When he finished, he bowed his head. Juggie was the reason that some of the teachers renewed their contracts, and it wasn’t hard to see the source of her power over Superintendent Tosk.

  Barnes sighed and brought the pie plate over to the counter.

  “You outdid yourself.”

  “Huh. Got a smoke?”

  “No. I really quit this time.”

  “Me too.”

  They both paused, in case . . .

  “Let me finish my floor,” said Juggie. Then she stood straight up, narrowed her eyes, glanced around, and plucked a wrapped parcel from under the counter. Supper, for her son. She shoved it toward Barnes.

  Wood Mountain was already at the gym. Barnes found him at the sawdust bag. Little puffs of dust popped from the burlap when Wood Mountain struck with his left. He had more power in his left, though he was right-handed. Barnes put the package down by the neat roll of clothing that Wood Mo
untain had brought with him. He was Juggie’s son with Archille Iron Bear, a Sioux man whose grandfather had traveled north with Sitting Bull, on the run after Little Big Horn. A few families had stayed in Canada, some at a sheltered spot on the plains called Wood Mountain. Most people had forgotten the actual name of Juggie’s son and called him by the place his father had come from.

  “Looking good,” said Barnes, shedding his jacket.

  Barnes picked up a pad he’d sewed together from old horse blankets, more sawdust inside. He held it up and danced it around for Wood Mountain to hit. There was a ragged circle of red cloth stitched onto it. Barnes changed the location of the circle every few days.

  “You’re clenching up before the strike. Relax,” he said.

  Wood Mountain stopped and bounced, his arms dangling loose. Then he started again. Barnes’s forearms began to ache, absorbing shock after shock behind the pad. It was good he’d stepped out of the ring before Wood Mountain got there. Barnes was taller, but the two of them fought the same weight class. Both middleweights, topping out at 170, usually, though now Barnes weighed more. He blamed Juggie.

  Noko

  Thomas drifted to the surface of his sleep. He heard the mice, skittering pleasantly behind the plaster and reed insulation against the roof. He heard a car drive up, then the buggy his father still kept. Rose and the girls were hooting and laughing. The babies shrieking. He was too buoyant. He tried to weight himself, to sink back under the surface of the noises. He pulled the pillow over his head, and was gone. The next time he came to, the sun was paler, the light half spent, and his body had relaxed into such a pleasant torpor that he was pinned to the thin mattress. He finally loosened himself and left the old house, walked to the little house, into the kitchen.

  Sharlo, his daughter, was a sharp, lively senior in high school, dark hair pin-curled every night, jeans rolled up her ankles, checkered blouse, sweater, saddle shoes. Fee was quieter, just eleven, dreaming as she worked the pedal on the butter churn. Rose was frying onions and potatoes. Wade was in and out, popping air punches, supposedly filling the woodbox.