The Night Watchman

by Louise Erdrich

  “I saw it all. Yes, I did,” said Patrice. “There was a woman.”

  Termination of Federal Contracts and Promises Made with Certain Tribes of Indians

  Joint Hearing

  before the

  Subcommittees of the

  Committees on

  Interior and Insular Affairs

  Congress of the United States

  Eighty-third Congress

  second session

  Part 12

  turtle mountain indians, north dakota

  march 2 and 3, 1954

  Statement of Thomas Wazhashk,

  Chairman of the Advisory Committee,

  Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians,

  North Dakota,

  as well as statements by

  other committee members,

  jewel bearing plant employees,

  a ghost, a PhD candidate,

  and a stenographer.

  Remarks by Senator Arthur V. Watkins

  are direct quotes from

  the Congressional Record.

  They walked into a large room lined with honey-colored panels. An imposing semicircular bank of ornamented wood, divided into desklike seating, took up one end of the room. Muted light poured upon the structure through a vast window. A long rectangular table was placed in the forward center of the room, facing the great desk. They all shook hands with Senator Milton R. Young, mild and thoughtful, with a boxer’s granite chin. All the way from Fort Berthold, Martin Cross, friendly, craggy, astute, chatted with the senator. Thomas stayed by the table talking with them while the rest of the party sat down in the chairs directly behind the table. Moses and Juggie muttered to each other. Patrice tucked her hands in her lap. Beside her, Millie sat gazing straight ahead, in a trance of terror.

  Millie was looking at a recessed panel behind the places where the senators would be seated. Perhaps it was a doorway. It was decorated with sharp vertical angles. Congruence is lucky, she thought. Lucky, lucky, lucky. And I’m not superstitious. As she did when in distress, she was also assessing the way objects lined up in the room. The doorway, if it was a doorway, was perfectly centered, which was reassuring. But the heavy drapes, pushing aside the flood of radiance coming through the window, hung slightly crooked. This made Millie want to cry. And she did not ever cry. She steeled herself and took comfort from the great bronze sconces to either side—they defied geometry. The fixtures looked like outsize flashlights. Each admitted a glow that seemed feeble in the already light-flooded room. The flashlights diverted Millie, but now her blood fizzed in alarm as she rose. She took her oath with the others and seated herself at the desk to the left of Thomas. With rustles and low talk, the senators conferred. Millie calmed herself by checking and rechecking the page order of her statement. Senator Watkins began to speak. Millie panicked until she looked up at him and saw that he was yet another man who didn’t know how to type.

  To one side, below the giant desk, sat a woman in a severe suit. She posed her fingers over the keys of her stenotype, and began. Aha. There was no excuse for this sort of thing. It occurred to Millie, then, that the woman, the stenographer with the handsome machine, would also be taking down and typing up her words. Millie allowed this idea to slowly fill her with a secret confidence.

  Senator Young spoke well and said exactly what the tribal committee members had hoped he would say. He insisted that the state could not step in and take over the responsibilities of the federal government. That, if anything, the government should fund an expensive job-training program on the reservation.

  Thomas began.

  First, the introductions, the courtesies, the insistence that the record show that this trip by tribal people to Washington had been paid for by the generosity of local people, not the government. Nothing was said about the boxing match.

  Sitting behind Thomas in the row of supporters and interested parties, Patrice blinked and remembered Wood Mountain’s broken eyebrow. For a moment that snowy day, her glasses had slipped and she saw how the scar had formed across the bone, a living and still healing interruption. What would she do about him?

  Instead of arguing the premise of termination itself, the tribal committee had decided to buy time. The government’s five-year plan was insufficient because the reservation was currently unable to sustain itself without support. Hammer that. Then as a point of outrage demand more money from the government.

  A description of the Turtle Mountain Reservation.

  A statement of strong opposition. Then a ladle of corn syrup—appreciation for the efforts and time of the government, extra dollops for Senator Watkins and Associate Commissioner of Indian Affairs H. Rex Lee, the authors of the two measures that would strip the people of everything.

  Watkins interrupted. Watkins started talking.

  Thomas thought: Oh hell, stick with it, stick with it, don’t let him give you the teacher-eye, don’t let him throw his eight-dollar words at you, don’t let him . . .

  . . . and suddenly Roderick was in the room.

  Roderick

  The instant that Roderick saw Senator Arthur V. Watkins, he knew exactly who he was. Watkins was the teacher who’d taught the Palmer Method, the little man who’d whacked his hands with the ruler’s edge, who’d pulled his ears, who’d screeched at him, who’d called him hopeless, who’d punished him for talking Indian. Watkins was the man who’d dragged Roderick to the cellar stairs and said to Thomas, “Would you care to join your friend?”

  Senator Watkins: In my area, whites got the poor land on the reservation. Within a year, however, the Indians leased their allotments. They just didn’t want to farm. That is true today. I think most of the Indian allotments are under lease to white people. That is why I seriously doubt that Indians like to farm.

  Patrice, Thinking

  He’s another white farmer like Doris Lauder’s family who picked up cheap Indian land after the taxes came due on allotments. I know damn well he didn’t get the poor land because no white person would buy it. He got the only farmable land.

  Senator Watkins: If I may ask, do you work, Mr. Wazhashk?

  Thomas Wazhashk: Yes. I farm.

  Senator Watkins: It is too bad we haven’t more like you in these tribes.

  Thomas Wazhashk: What farmable land there is on the reservation is mostly farmed by Indians.

  Senator Watkins: I have noticed Indians, wherever I have seen them, in mechanical jobs, jobs requiring skill with their hands. They seem to like that.

  Patrice

  They seem to like that? I guess they do. I guess we do.

  Millie

  I won’t look down at my dress. I won’t get lost in my sleeves. But I’ll be fine because I’m dressed in the elements of geometry. Beyond which I must not go in my thoughts until I have delivered my study.

  Thomas Wazhashk: In view of the fact that employment has shown a considerable downward trend throughout the United States as a whole, we believe the relocation program is ill timed and would be fraught with insurmountable difficulties. We want to point out that the relocation program has limitations. It doesn’t cover our problems.

  Senator Watkins: I wouldn’t say it covered them all. No. Because, after all, the government can’t solve your problems for you. Most of them have to be solved by yourselves.

  Thomas

  Is that you, Roderick?

  Roderick

  Yes, it’s me. Hold out. Don’t get mad. They don’t like an Indian to have brains. Ignore old Mr. Pantywaist and put your sentences together.

  Senator Watkins: Oh, surely. There would be nothing permanently cured that you don’t cure yourself. No government, no matter how benevolent, can put ambition into people. That has to be developed by themselves. You can’t legislate morality, character, or any of those fine virtues into people.

  You learn to walk by walking.

  Thomas, Thinking

  We didn’t get to the Turtle Mountains by riding in a covered wagon.

  Roderick and Thomas
>
  For the rest of his life, when Thomas thought of the moment his teacher asked whether he wanted to join Roderick in the cellar, Thomas imagined saying, “Yes, yes, sling me down there, you scabby rat.” But he hadn’t said that. No, Thomas had gone silent and let Roderick take the blame. But it hadn’t been entirely out of cowardice. No, because after all, it was just a cellar and Roderick had been in worse. No, because behind the teacher’s back, Roderick shook his head at him to stay. He knew that kids had been forgotten down there a week at a time. No, it was strategy. From up above, Thomas could bust Roderick out.

  Senator Watkins: Let me ask you a few questions about you personally. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I am not requiring this of you, but it may help to illustrate the situation. What do you do for a living?

  Thomas Wazhashk: As I mentioned, farming. Also I am one of the guards at the Turtle Mountain ordnance plant, the jewel plant, where they make jewel bearings.

  Senator Watkins: What are jewel bearings?

  Thomas Wazhashk: We have brought an example of a jewel bearing, as well as a magnifying glass, which you will need to see that jewel bearing. We also have an expert on this work. Miss Patrice Paranteau. May I call upon her to give expert witness?

  Senator Watkins: She must be sworn in, but yes.

  Patrice Paranteau (after being sworn in; head buzzing with fear, holding the card, the example, and magnifying glass): This little wire that you see here is a wire made out of tongue steel, and that is set in the machine and worked back and forth until you finally drill a hole in the jewel. Through the magnifying glass you will see there is a tiny hole through this jewel and everything is polished, inside and outside. It has to be to the certain dimensions stated on the card, which you see here, and it is also cupped, so that it will hold oil for lubrication purposes.

  Senator Watkins (ignoring Patrice and addressing Thomas Wazhashk): What can these people do with the training for this work?

  Thomas Wazhashk: I believe the average pay is 75 to 90 cents an hour. As for me, I take home $38.25 a week.

  Senator Watkins: Some of the Indian women who have families labor there, too, don’t they?

  Thomas Wazhashk: Yes; most of the Indian women employed there have families.

  Senator Watkins: Why do they take women, rather than men? You have plenty of men, haven’t you?

  Thomas Wazhashk: They give tests. They give you manual dexterity tests, and I believe the women are better in that than the men are. And now, if I may take the opportunity, Miss Millie Cloud is here to introduce her field research study conducted on the social and economic conditions on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.

  Millie

  “If this might be introduced into the record . . . ,” said Millie.

  Then she began.

  Reading her study out went like a blur.

  The questions were many.

  So passed one hour, and the next. At last, a recess.

  Roderick

  Remember how you buttered that white teacher up to the teeth? Called him sir, sir this, sir that, thanked him constantly, asked his advice. Then stole the keys from his suit pocket? Then you let me out and slipped back the keys.

  Thomas

  “Should I try it?” Thomas whispered.

  Thomas watched as Senator Watkins walked down the hall. With his small entourage, he walked down the stairs. Thomas followed Senator Watkins down the stairs. He found the senator’s office and entered. He was about to explain who he was to a secretary, when Senator Watkins emerged from the inner office.

  “Hello there,” said Senator Watkins. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m here to thank you,” said Thomas.

  “Well, well,” said the senator.

  “I wanted to thank you for your concern for our people. You have obviously taken our situation to heart, and I was struck by the kindness showed to us in your carefully listening and thoughtfully weighing our testimony on the termination bill.”

  “In all of my days as a senator, nobody has ever thanked me for listening to their testimony.”

  “I call that an omission,” said Thomas.

  As he left the senator’s office, he was thinking, I am and we are absolutely destitute and desperate. This is a sign of how bad things are. I am willing to forgo my dignity to try to butter you up to the teeth. I hope it helps our cause.

  Goodbye

  After the next day’s testimony, the little delegation was anxious to leave the Capitol. Yet they lingered, as if their presence might still have some effect.

  The Way Home

  Thomas

  On the way home on the train, as the gray snow, the blinding snow, the dark fields flew by, as the birds raved and twisted in vast flocks above, moving in eerie specks and spirals, as Thomas glimpsed, silenced, untold numbers of boarded-up or curtained-back windows and rickety fire escapes, scruffy trash yards, blackened brick walls and dumps, he reviewed every moment, every word. Had he said such and such? What had it meant when the senator adjusted his eyeglasses? How would things go? Thomas was convinced that he’d destroyed their chances. He couldn’t point out exactly how he’d done it, but he knew. And the other thing. The senator had also asked every single Indian person who testified about their degree of Indian blood. The funny thing was, nobody knew exactly. No one had answered with a numeral. It wasn’t something that they kept close track of and in fact Thomas hadn’t parsed out his own ancestors—determined who was a quarter or half or three-quarters or full blood. Nor had anyone he knew. As the miles rolled on, this began to bother him. Everyone knew they were Indian or not Indian regardless of what the rolls said or what the government said, it was a given or not a given. Long ago, a guy in a bar had made a family tree for him. When Thomas looked at the tree, he pointed out the Indians and came out a full-blood, though he knew there was French somewhere. Then the person made the tree again and made him more white, more Indian, more white. It turned into a game. And it was still a game, but a game that interested Senator Watkins, which meant it was a game that could erase them.

  Each of them bought newspapers to keep as souvenirs. They read about what had happened in the House of Representatives. None of the representatives were killed but one was in serious condition. It was surprising, now, to think that the hearings had not been canceled. And that they had only been lightly searched on the way in the next day, though there were plenty of extra guards looking fierce and vigilant.

  Patrice

  Now I know. I know how Wood Mountain felt after that fight, she thought. Not on the outside, of course, but on the inside. All of the adrenaline gone, all the fight out of her, but each moment clear and emphatic, the faces of the senators in every detail. Especially Senator Watkins. The word supercilious. That was the word for every detail. Watkins’s coin-purse mouth. His self-righteous ease. The way he held himself, giving off that vibration. Filling the air with sanctimony. Another word that flung itself into her mind.

  In the newspapers, there was quite a bit about Puerto Rico so Patrice had her answer. And there was a large picture of the woman who had jumped to her feet and shot the pistol. Her luminous hot eyes, her slash of lipsticked mouth, blurred in the newsprint. Patrice ran her hand over the grainy photographs and carefully stashed the newspapers in her bag. She leaned back and saw the woman’s eyes. Lolita Lebrón. Viva Puerto Rico. She wanted her country to live so badly she’d been willing to kill. Was there something wrong with her? Or was there something wrong with Patrice? If this opposing testimony didn’t work, if they lost their scrap of universe, if her mother was forced to live in a city, which would kill her, if Vera was never found, if, if, if she had Senator Arthur V. Watkins on his knees before her and his life in her hands. What if that. What if that? Mr. Smug Mouth. Mr. Sanctimony.

  He’d be in danger, she thought. I do things perfectly when enraged.

  Patrice had trouble sleeping on the train that ride. Every time she was about to drift off, an image intervened. She saw her hands a
s her mother’s hands. She saw her mother’s fingers, strong and supernatural, clenched around Freckle Face’s neck, Bernie’s neck, the senator’s neck. Patrice tried to stop the pictures but they returned. She was inhabited by a vengeful, roiling, even murderous spirit. That same spirit had hatched the bird that pecked Bucky’s face. When she got home, she’d clean up the sweat lodge and ask her mother to help her get rid of these thoughts.

  Moses

  He missed his wife. She was a small, orderly, kind woman with an impertinent smile. They’d been together since they were children. There wasn’t a time without her. This was the longest. He had taken one of her knitted scarves with him, a red one, and at night he’d slept with it next to his face, even on the train. Their children called them “the old-timers” because their love was like that—old-time. They held hands. They kissed. Called each other niinimoshehn. Good morning, my little sweetheart, he said to her every morning. He was in a terror that something might happen to her while he was gone. Maybe he could call her cousin, who lived in town, from a phone? Maybe it was less expensive now? If something had happened, they would have sent a telegram, said Juggie, several times. He was worrying for nothing. But the feeling that something was going to happen wouldn’t let him go and he got out with Thomas hoping to distract himself. During their layover in the Minneapolis train station, they planned to find a tobacco shop and buy themselves, and Louis, a few cigars.