The Buried Book (18 page)

CHAPTER 33

Were you hospitalized?

Uncle Leo made good on his promise. He carried Jasper up to the cabin and set him on the kitchen table. Aunt Velma was at the stove.

“Oh, Mary Mother of God!” she gasped when she saw him come in. “Jasper! What were you thinkin’?”

Jasper didn’t answer. He just watched her put a large pot of water on the woodstove and stoke the fire. She grabbed the can of salt from the shelf and dumped half its contents in the water.

“What’s goin’ on?” Wayne asked from his bed.

“Jasper’s back, honey. You never mind that. Get up quick and go tend to the cows,” Velma said as she ripped a large cloth into rags and dumped them into the pot on the stove.

“Yes’m.” Jasper could hear Wayne thump out of bed and pull open drawers. A second later, he was at the boy’s side, staring at his legs. “Dang. You really did it, huh?”

Jasper couldn’t look him in the eye. “I’m—I’m so sorry, Wayne.”

“Hey.” Wayne socked him in the arm. The dull pain was a brief distraction from the horrible burning in his legs. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Wayne! Git!” Aunt Velma swatted at her son.

Wayne squeezed Jasper’s arm before leaving. “It’s gonna be alright, kid,” he said, as though he didn’t really believe it, and then pushed through the door.

“Leo, I’m gonna need you to wash up.” Velma was scrubbing her own hands in the washbasin with lye soap. Then she pulled one of the rags from the pot. “We’re gonna start easy, baby,” she cooed.

She began wiping the dirt and dried blood from his legs. The water felt warm and soothing at first. Jasper stared at the ceiling. He tried to count the nail heads in the boards to keep from squirming. Trickles of salt water seeped over his skin to the edges of his wounds, sending sparks of pain up his spine. He flinched despite his best efforts.
I won’t cry.

After two rags were filled up with blood and hay, Uncle Leo’s face floated over him in front of the ceiling. “You’re gonna need to bite on this now, son.”

The word
son
distracted Jasper to the point where he barely noticed his uncle putting a leather belt between his teeth. It tasted like shoe polish. Jasper wanted to spit it out, but the look on his uncle’s face told him he better not.

“We’re gonna do this as quick as we can,” Leo said to Jasper. He then pinned the boy to the table with the trunk of his body.

Jasper thrashed in protest but couldn’t move under his uncle’s weight. His knee exploded in pain as Aunt Velma set about attacking the wound. In that terrible moment, Jasper lost all sense of himself and became something else. Something wild and inhuman, screaming and thrashing against the weight of his uncle. White lights flashed as he pounded his head back against the table. His teeth bit down on the belt hard enough to crack them all.

“Easy. Easy now,” his uncle said from a million miles away. “We gotta clean it out.”

“Bits of glass are lodged in there,” Velma said over the gagged screams. “I’m gonna need to get the brush.”

The pain eased up just enough for Jasper to stop thrashing. His uncle let him up and pressed a bottle of brown liquid to his lips. “Drink some of this, boy. It’ll help the pain.”

Jasper opened his clenched eyes, and the entire room pulsed. The liquid burned his mouth, and it was as though he’d forgotten how to swallow. His uncle thumped him on the back, and the hot stuff poured down his throat. It hit his stomach like a fireball and headed back up again. His uncle slapped a hand over his mouth, forcing him to swallow it again. His head began to spin.

“What’d you give him?” a muddled voice asked.

“Corn mash. Just a little.”

“Good Lord, Leo. That’ll make him sick.”

“You got a better idea?” Jasper could barely understand them. Their voices warped and wobbled.

It wasn’t quite clear what happened next.

Over an hour later, Jasper woke up, cold and trembling. A lump throbbed on the back of his head, and his right leg felt like it had been half eaten by a monster—a monster with steel nails for teeth. When his eyes managed to focus, he could see a bloody rag tied to his right knee. His left shin was slathered in some thick white paste. They weren’t legs anymore, they were meat. The whole room was stuck at a funny angle, like a giant had picked up the house and set it back down crooked. It took him several minutes to see he was lying in bed. He tried to sit up and groaned.

“You comin’ back to us?” Aunt Velma asked from the curtain that separated Wayne’s bed from the kitchen.

Jasper tried to say
yes
, but nothing but a garbled moan came out.

She came to his bedside and put a hand on his forehead. “You got a fever, baby. Cuts like that go septic real fast in a barn. You should’ve come to me right away.”

“I’m so sorry,” he tried to say but couldn’t be sure what words got out. The warmth of a gentle hand on his skin made it impossible to hold back the pain, and soon the room was shaking with his sobs. He wanted his mother.

Aunt Velma scooped him into her arms and held him as he cried. He bawled like a baby and didn’t even care. He wept until her shirt was drenched and he could almost breathe again. She didn’t let go even when he’d calmed down a bit. Her rocking back and forth was comforting and nauseating at the same time. He didn’t want her to stop but was certain he was going to throw up all the same. He groaned and lurched until she eased him back down to the pillow and placed a cool compress on his head.

After she left the room, Jasper fell in and out of nightmares as he lay there slowly going crazy. Blood dripped down the walls. The monster in the bus driver’s pants. Lucifer eating a rat. Mr. Hoyt laughing. The bed shifted like a feeble raft as the room tossed and turned. The blanket smothered his screaming skin. His entire body was a knee, a throbbing, pus-filled knee.

Eventually, a face resurfaced at the bedside. It was Uncle Leo. “We’re gonna get you dressed and head over to Dr. Whitebird. I got business out there anyway. Can you stand?”

Jasper tried to nod.

His uncle pulled him up until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. Jasper struggled not to vomit from the dizziness. Leo pulled a clean shirt over his head and looked the other way so Jasper could use the chamber pot. Getting pants on over his injured legs proved much harder, and they eventually settled on Wayne’s old summer short pants.

The cool air outside the cabin hit Jasper’s overheated skin hard enough to focus his eyes for a moment. His uncle helped him limp over to the truck, hobbling on his burnt leg, until Leo just gave up and carried him. Jasper didn’t have the strength to be embarrassed anymore.

Uncle Leo cranked the engine, and the boy leaned his throbbing head against the cold metal of the car door. He shut his eyes and didn’t open them again until the car had stopped moving.

“We’re here,” his uncle announced. “Black River Reservation.”

Jasper forced his head up so he could look out the windows. He expected to see tepees or wigwams like he’d seen in his book, but there was nothing but rows and rows of small cabins and a few scattered trailers. “What are those?”

“Forget what you’ve heard, boy. These are regular folks, just like us.”

Jasper nodded.

“Be polite to Dr. Whitebird, and whatever you do, don’t ask if he’s a real doctor. He gets real offended by that.” Uncle Leo opened his door. “He got his MD from Wayne State, and he’s the best damned doctor this side of Port Huron. Understand?”

His uncle got out of the car before Jasper could answer. The passenger door cranked open, and his uncle scooped him up and set him down a few strides later on a folding metal chair inside a small cinder block building. Then he rang the silver bell set on the card table opposite the entrance.

A minute later, a brown-skinned woman appeared through a blank door behind the table. She didn’t have a feather in her hair. Her long black braids were the only thing that looked Indian about her. She wore a simple dress almost identical to the one Aunt Velma had been wearing that morning.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Tell Dr. Whitebird Leonard Williams is here to see him. My nephew’s in need of some help.”

“Just a moment.”

Uncle Leo took the seat next to Jasper and put a hand as rough as sandpaper on the boy’s smoldering brow. He dropped it and shook his head. “You ever get the chance again to pick between a whuppin’ and some real-life punishment, what are you gonna pick?”

“A whuppin’, sir,” Jasper whispered. The room was starting to tilt under his chair. He shut his eyes and pressed the lump on the back of his head to the wall.

“Damn right.”

A door clicked open. “The doctor will see you now.”

“Come on.” Uncle Leo hauled Jasper off the chair and helped him through the door and down a narrow hallway to another room. Inside sat a hunting cot and a locked cabinet. His uncle laid Jasper out on the cot and leaned against the wall next to him.

A few minutes later, an older man appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a button-down shirt, a white coat, and a tie. A stethoscope hung around his neck. Jasper blinked at him with his fevered eyes. It took several minutes for him to confirm that Dr. Whitebird was actually an Indian. His long gray hair was tied back, and he had a tattoo of a bird on the back of the hand he extended to his uncle.

“It’s been a long time, Leo,” the doctor said as they shook hands. “How’s the family?”

“Been doin’ real well, thanks.”

“And who is this?” Dr. Whitebird asked, crouching down to look at Jasper.

“My nephew Jasper. He decided it’d be a good idea to knock over a lamp in the barn last night.”

“I see,” the doctor said, studying Jasper’s face. His deep brown eyes were kind, but they stared at him longer than anyone had ever bothered to look at him before. For an instant, Jasper panicked that they could see all his thoughts—even the bad ones he was afraid to think out loud. The doctor touched Jasper’s cheek, then peeked under his bandages. After this brief examination, he stood up. “Where are his parents?”

“Away,” Uncle Leo said in a tone that made clear he wouldn’t be answering more questions on the topic. “I’m his guardian at the moment.”

“Hmm,” the doctor grunted and contemplated this for a moment. “This boy needs a penicillin IV and a tetanus shot. How do you plan to pay?”

“I’m lookin’ to trade if I can.”

The doctor chuckled. “Now I know why you come here first. What do you have for trade? Corn? Wheat?”

“His mother gave him this before she left.”

Jasper sucked in a cry as his uncle pulled his mother’s necklace out of his jacket. The men pretended not to notice.

“I’m sure she’d do anything she could to help him now,” Uncle Leo added, handing the beaded pendant over to the man.

Dr. Whitebird took the necklace and studied it, turning it over and over in his hand. Finally, he said, “The boy must stay here for two nights at least. There is too much danger now for him to leave. If the infection spreads to the blood, he will be in the hands of the Great Spirit.”

“I understand,” Uncle Leo agreed and then looked down at Jasper, who was gaping up at him in tears. He grabbed his nephew by the chin and looked him hard in the eye. “He’s a strong boy, Doc. He’s gonna be fine. Aren’t you, son?”

Jasper clamped his trembling lips together and nodded.

CHAPTER 34

Do you believe it was your fault?

Uncle Leo held Jasper still so the doctor could put a needle in his arm. And then another. The pinpricks felt like nothing compared to the madness in his legs. Dr. Whitebird hung a glass jar of medicine over his head, connected to the spike in his arm. The nurse got Jasper a straw pillow and put a colorful blanket over him.

“Don’t mess with that line, boy,” his uncle warned him.

“Yes, sir,” Jasper whispered, trying not to look at the bloody bandage that held in the needle.

“We’ll come check on you tomorrow.” Then Uncle Leo left him alone in the room.

A few minutes later, the nurse came back. It was the same woman from the front desk. “Drink this,” she said, lifting his head up with one hand and holding a warm mug to his lips. “It will cool the fever. You should try to sleep. Sleep will help the medicine.”

It was a bitter tea, but Jasper did what he was told. The warm liquid hit his queasy stomach and immediately calmed it downs then spread to his arms and legs, quieting the chills in his bones. It was such a relief he couldn’t form the words to thank her. Jasper was out before she left the room.

Hours later, the sound of footsteps pulled his eyelids open. He squinted in the darkness of the room, unsure what had woken him. He didn’t know where he was. There was no window or clock. The tug of the line in his arm reminded him he was lying on a cot at the Black River Reservation. The pain in his knee was still there but had been muted. Maybe it was getting better. It might even be normal again someday. He lowered his head back to the pillow and let his eyes close.

“Jasper,” a voice whispered next to him.

He sat up with a jolt.

“Relax, honey. Lay down.” The voice was startlingly familiar.

He strained to see in the dark. “Mom? Mom, is that you?”

A warm hand reached out and cupped his cheek. “Shh! Lay down, sweetie. You’re hurt.”

He slowly lowered his head back to the pillow. Her hand moved from his cheek to his forehead.

“Your fever’s coming down. That’s real good. You’re gonna be fine.” Her voice trembled with tears. “You’re gonna be just fine.”

It hurt to hear her crying. It hurt to hear her voice. He started crying too. “Where did you go? Why? Why did you leave me?”

“Shh, baby . . . I’m so sorry. I had to leave. I had to . . . but you shouldn’t worry about that now. You need to get better.”

“But—the apartment. I thought someone might’ve . . .” He felt himself growing more and more hysterical.
Her car. Detective Russo. The blood on the wall. The diary.
He fought to lift his fevered head back up. “What’d he do to you?”

Her gentle hands pushed him back to the bed. “Don’t worry, baby. Just get better, okay?” Her voice drifted up and away from the cot.

Jasper struggled to sit up again but didn’t have the strength. It was as if her hands were still on his shoulders. They still felt warm. “Wait,” he called after her weakly. “Don’t go.”

“I love you, honey. No matter what happens. I’ll always love you.” Her voice was fading.

She was gone.

“Come back!” His wails turned to screams. “Don’t go!
Come back!
”

“Jasper?” A pair of hands shook his shoulders. “Jasper.”

Jasper opened his eyes. The room was filled with blinding light, and Dr. Whitebird was staring down into his face. Jasper’s clothes and the blankets were drenched.

“Your fever broke,” the doctor said. “This is a good sign.”

Jasper blinked, trying to adjust to the jarring reality happening all around him. The doctor changed the medicine jar over his head. The nurse came in a minute later and changed his bandages. The shock of the air on his open wounds woke him so completely it left no doubt. It had all been a dream.

On reflex, a hand shot down to the leg of his pants. It was dry. He set his head back down on his pillow and bit back tears, not knowing if he was more miserable she hadn’t really come to see him or that he had woken up at all. The nurse finished re-dressing his wounds and left.

“They are looking better,” Dr. Whitebird said from behind Jasper’s head. He pulled up a stool and gazed into the boy’s eyes with that probing stare. “The body is healing, but I see the spirit is still sick.”

Jasper looked away to hide his face.

“Bad dreams?”

He didn’t answer.

“Hmm,” the doctor grunted. “Sleep tea can loosen bad spirits. It is important to let them go.”

Jasper shook his head at the wall. His mother was not a bad spirit. He didn’t want to let her go. He needed to go back to sleep and find her.

“You cannot walk in dreams, little Ogichidaa.” The man patted him on the shoulder.

Jasper turned and scowled at the leathery face of the doctor. “What did you call me?”

“Ogichidaa means warrior.”

Jasper frowned. He wasn’t a warrior. He was a coward—a crybaby coward that ruined his leg so bad it’d cost him the only thing that mattered anymore. He hadn’t said he was sorry, he realized. He hadn’t told his mother he was sorry he’d lost her necklace. He flexed his legs against the bandages until the pain blocked out his guilt.

“Your uncle, he said you knocked over a lantern, yes?”

Jasper didn’t answer.

“Did you run?”

“No, I . . . ,” his voice trailed off for a moment. “I ran away after.”

The doctor looked down at the bandages on his legs and nodded. He reached into his white coat and pulled out the necklace Uncle Leo had given him. “This is very special to you.”

Jasper bit his lips and nodded.

The doctor smiled and placed the necklace back into Jasper’s hand.

His mouth fell open. “But the medicine? We can’t pay . . .”

The doctor patted his hand. “When you grow up, young Ogichidaa, you will come back and pay.”

“When I grow up?” Jasper clutched the necklace to his chest.

“When you are old enough to have a fair trade, you will come back. Taking something that does not come to you freely is baataamo—a curse. Remember that.”

“How do you know I’ll come back?”

The doctor chuckled and held up his hands. “I don’t.”

“I will. I promise. I will come back.”

“Good. Promise to live and grow up. That is payment enough for now.” The doctor patted his head and stood to leave.

Jasper opened his hand and looked down at the beaded pendant with its strange symbol. “Doctor?”

“Eya?”

“What does this mean?” he asked pointing to the symbol in the middle.

“It is an old symbol,” he answered. “Nimaamaa. It carries with it a mother’s love.”

Jasper ran his finger over it. He could still feel her lips on his forehead.

“A wise man once said, ‘Every child has many mothers, and every mother has many children.’ Do you understand this?”

Jasper shook his head. He only had one mother, and she was gone.

“The mother that births us, gives us life. For some nimaamaayag, that is all they can give. Even that is a blessing. Do not forget.”

“But,” Jasper protested and then couldn’t find any words to say except, “someone told me it was a wedding necklace.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows. “Manitonaaha weddings are not about jewelry. Farmers know very little of our ways. Most call me a witch doctor.” He wiggled his fingers at Jasper with a broad smile, then headed to the door.

Jasper stared after him and asked in a tiny voice, “Did you . . . know her?”

The doctor turned back to the small boy on the cot. “Your mother?”

He nodded with pleading eyes, not wanting the doctor to leave.

Dr. Whitebird looked pained for several seconds before he finally answered. “Eya, I knew her.”

“But how . . .”

“No more questions now, Ogichidaa. Save your strength.” With that, he was gone.