Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir) (3 page)

Adirondacks, New York

he one with the missing front teeth. He's the one who
shot me. Before his teeth were missing.

Getting shot was, in a way, my fault. I heard them
coming when they were still a mile away. I could've run. But
running never suited me, even before I got this piece of German steel in my hip. My Helper. Plus I'd been heating the
stones for my sweat lodge since the sun was a hand high above
the hill. I run off, the fire would burn down and they'd cool
off. Wouldn't be respectful to those stones.

See what they want, I figured. Probably just deer hunters
who'd heard about my reputation. You want to get a trophy,
hire Indian Charley.

Yup, that was what it had to be. A couple of flatlanders
out to hire me to guide them for the weekend. Boys who'd
seen the piece about me in the paper, posing with two good
old boys from Brooklyn and the twelve pointer they bagged.
Good picture of me, actually. Too good, I realized later. But
that wasn't what I was thinking then. Just about potential customers. Not that I needed the money. But a man has to keep
busy. And it was better in general if folks just saw me as a typical Indian. Scraping by, not too well educated, a threat to no
one. Good old Indian Charley.

Make me a sawbuck or two, get them a buck or two. Good
trade.

I was ready to say that to them. Rehearsing it in my head.
For a sawbuck or two, I'll get you boys a buck or two. Good
trade. Indian humor. Funny enough to get me killed.

I really should have made myself scarce when I heard their
voices clear enough to make out what the fat one was saying.
It was also when I felt the first twinge in my hip. They were
struggling up the last two hundred yards of the trail. That's
when I should have done it. Not ran, maybe. But faded back
into the hemlocks.

Son of a bidgin' Indin, the heavy-footed one said. And
kept on saying it in between labored breaths and the sound of
his heavy feet, slipping and dislodging stones. The other one,
who wasn't so clumsy but was still making more noise than a
lame moose, didn't say anything.

I imagined Heavy Foot was just ticked off at me for making my camp two miles from the road and the last of it straight
up. It may have discouraged some who might've hired me. But
it weeded out the weaker clientele. And the view was worth
it, hills rolling away down to the river that glistened with the
rising sun like a silver bracelet, the town on the other side that
turned into a constellation of lights mirroring the stars in the
sky above it at night.

The arrowhead-shaped piece of metal in my flesh sent another little shiver down the outside of my thigh. I ignored it
again. Not a smart thing to do, but I was curious about my
visitors.

Curiosity killed the Chippewa, as my grampa, who had
also been to Carlisle, used to joke.

For some reason the picture of the superintendent's long
face the last day I saw him came to mind. Twenty years ago.
He was sitting behind his desk, his pale face getting red as
one of those beets I'd spent two summers digging on the farm where they sent me to work for slave labor wages-like every
other Indian kid at the school. The superintendent got his
cut, of course. How many farm hands and house maids do
you need? We got hundreds of them here at Carlisle. Nice,
civilized, docile little Indian boys and girls. Do whatever you
want with them.

That was before I got my growth and Pop Warner saw
me and made me one of his athletic boys. Special quarters,
good food and lots of it, an expense account at Blumenthal's
department store, a share of the gate. Plus a chance to get as
many concussions as any young warrior could ever dream of,
butting heads against the linemen of Harvard and Syracuse
and Army. I also found some of the best friends I ever had on
that football squad.

It was because of one of them that I'd been able to end
up here on this hilltop-which, according to my name on a
piece of paper filed in the county seat belonged to me. As well
as the other two hundred acres all the way down to the river.
I'd worked hard for the money that made it possible for me
to get my name on that deed. But that's another story to tell
another time.

As Heavy Foot and his quieter companion labored up the
last narrow stretch of trail, where it passed through a hemlock
thicket and then came out on an open face of bedrock, I was
still replaying that scene in the superintendent's office.

You can't come in here like this.

I just did.

I'll have you expelled.

I almost laughed at that one. Throw an Indian out of Carlisle? Where some children were brought in chains? Where
they cut our hair, stole the fine jewelry that our parents arrayed its in, took our clothes, changed our names, dressed its in military uniforms, and turned us into little soldiers? Where
more kids ran away than ever graduated?

You won't get the chance. I held up my hand and made a
fist.

The super cringed back when I did that. I suppose when
you have bear paw hands like mine, they could be a little scary
to someone with a guilty conscience.

I lifted my little finger. First, I said, I'm not here alone. I
looked back over my shoulder where the boys of the Carlisle
football team were waiting in the hall.

I held up my ring finger. Second, I talk; you listen.

Middle finger. Third, he goes. Out of here. Today.

The super knew who I meant. The head disciplinarian of
the school. Mr. Morissey. Who was already packing his bags
with the help of our two tackles. Help Morissey needed because of his dislocated right shoulder and broken jaw.

The super started to say something. But the sound of my
other hand coming down hard on his desk stopped his words
as effectively as a cork in a bottle. His nervous eyes focused for
a second on the skinned knuckles of my hand.

Fourth, I said, extending my index finger. No one will ever
be sent to that farm again. No, don't talk. You know the one I
mean. Just nod if you understand. Good.

Last, my thumb extended, leaning forward so that it
touched his nose. You never mention my name again. You do
not contact the agent on my reservation or anyone else. You
just take me out of the records. I am a violent Indian. Maybe
I have killed people. You do not ever want to see me again.
Just nod.

The super nodded.

Good, I said. Now, my hand patting the air as if I was giving a command to a dog, stay!

He stayed. I walked out into the hall where every man
on the football squad except for our two tackles was waiting,
including our Indian coach. The super stayed in his office as
they all shook my hand, patted me on the back. No one said
goodbye. There's no word for goodbye. Travel good. Maybe
we see you further down the road.

The super didn't even come out as they moved with me to
the school gate, past the mansion built with the big bucks from
football ticket sales where Pop Warner had lived. As I walked
away, down to the train station, never looking back, the super
remained in his seat. His legs too weak with fear for him to
stand. According to what I heard later in France-from Gus
Welch, who was my company commander and had been our
quarterback at Carlisle-the superintendent sat there for the
rest of the day without moving. The football boys finally took
pity on him and sent one of the girls from the sewing class in
to tell him that Charles, the big dangerous Indian, was gone
and he could come out now.

Gus laughed. You know what he said when she told him
that? Don't mention his name. That's what he said.

I might have been smiling at the memory when the two
men came into view, but that wasn't where my recollections
had stopped. They'd kept walking me past the Carlisle gate,
down the road to the trolley tracks. They'd taken me on the
journey I made back then, by rail, by wagon, and on foot, until
I reached the dark hills that surrounded that farm. The one
more Carlisle kids had run away from than any other. Or at
least it was reported that they had run away-too many of
them were never seen again

That had been the first time I acted on the voice that
spoke within me. An old voice with clear purpose. I'd sat down
on the slope under an old apple tree and watched, feeling the wrongness of the place. I waited until it was late, the face of
the Night Traveler looking sadly down from the sky. Then I
made my way downhill to the place that Thomas Goodwaters, age eleven, had come to me about because he knew I'd
help after he told me what happened there. Told me after he'd
been beaten by the school disciplinarian for running away
from his Outing assignment at the Bullweather Farm. But the
older, half-healed marks on his back had not come from the
disciplinarian's cane.

Just the start, he'd told me, his voice calm despite it all,
speaking Chippewa. They were going to do worse. I heard
what they said they'd done before.

I knew his people back home. Cousins of mine. Good
people, canoe makers. A family peaceful at heart, that shared
with everyone and that hoped their son who'd been forced
away to that school would at least be taught things he could
use to help the people. Like how to scrub someone else's
kitchen floor.

He'd broken out the small window of the building where
they kept him locked up every night. It was a tiny window, but
he was so skinny by then from malnourishment that he'd been
able to worm his way free. Plus his family were Eel People and
known to be able to slip through almost any narrow place.

Two dogs, he said. Bad ones. Don't bark. Just come at you.

But he'd planned his escape well. The bag he'd filled with
black pepper from the kitchen and hidden in his pants was out
and in his hand as soon as he hit the ground. He'd left the two
bad dogs coughing and sneezing as he ran and kept running.

As his closest relative, I was the one he had been running
to before Morissey caught him.

You'll do something, Tommy Goodwaters said. It was not
a question. You will help.

I was halfway down the hill and had just climbed over the
barbed-wire fence when the dogs got to me. I'd heard them
coming, their feet thudding the ground, their eager panting.
Nowhere near as quiet as wolves-not that wolves will ever
attack a man. So I was ready when the first one leaped and
latched its long jaws around my right forearm. Its long canines
didn't get through the football pads and tape I'd wrapped
around both arms. The second one, snarling like a wolverine,
was having just as hard a time with my equally well-protected
left leg that it attacked from the back. They were big dogs,
probably about eighty pounds each. But I was two hundred
pounds bigger. I lifted up the first one as it held on to my
arm like grim death and brought my other forearm down hard
across the back of its neck. That broke its neck. The second
one let go when I kicked it in the belly hard enough to make a
fifty-yard field goal. Its heart stopped when I brought my knee
and the full weight of my body down on its chest.