Truth and Bright Water (11 page)

“What?”

“Building a graveyard all the way out here.”

“It’s not a graveyard.”

“You smell that?” My father raises his head. “That’s the smell of money rotting in the ground.” He revs the motorcycle and turns it around. “You want to see what this thing can do?”

“Sure.”

“Hold on,” he shouts, and we explode out of the grass as though we’re on a rocket. I try to see where we’re going, but the wind comes so hard I have to close my eyes.

“Yahoo!”

When you’re standing on the prairies looking out towards the river, the land looks flat and smooth. On the motorcycle, it feels as if we’re jumping canyons and plunging off cliffs. The sidecar pitches and snaps, and I have to hold on with both hands.

I don’t open my eyes until my father pulls up beside the tent and turns off the engine.

“Christ,” yells Franklin. “It sure as hell isn’t for your private amusement.”

“Piss off, Franklin.”

“You blow the engine,” says Franklin, “you own it.”

“Blow me!”

Franklin turns away from my father and looks at me. “Your father’s an asshole. Did you know that?”

“Nobody calls my son an asshole,” yells my father. He is still sitting on the motorcycle, but I can see he’s ready to get off.

“I’m calling
you
an asshole!” says Franklin.

“That’s better,” says my father, and he winks at me. “I am an asshole.”

The two of them stay like that for a minute, like runners at the start of a race, and then Franklin turns away and spits on the ground.

“It’s fun,” says my father, and he gives the motorcycle a pat, “but it’s never going to work.”

“The guns come tomorrow,” says Franklin. “It’ll work.”

“Sure,” says my father, and he turns around and looks over at Happy Trails. “You’re full of good ideas.”

My father and Franklin drive the motorcycles up to the tent. I close the truck up and wait.

“You won’t need the truck for the guns,” Franklin says as they walk back. “The boxes should fit in a car.”

“What’s your point?”

“Shouldn’t cost as much,” says Franklin.

My father shrugs. “It costs what it costs.”

“Tribe’s not one of your welfare whores.”

“I don’t know,” says my father. “Herd of scrawny buffalo, a beat-to-shit tent, and a mostly empty RV park. Looks like somebody’s screwing it real good.”

Franklin measures the distance to my father. “You can’t see shit, Elvin.”

“Got no trouble smelling it,” says my father, and he climbs in the cab and starts the engine.

I climb in quickly, but he’s already pulling away before I can get the door closed. I hear Franklin yell something over the roar of the
truck, but I can’t tell what it is. My father doesn’t look at Franklin at all. He looks straight out the window. As the truck rolls through the prairie grass, my father turns to me. “You want to see how close I can come to those motorcycles?”

“Not particularly.”

“You got a favourite?”

“What?”

“Motorcycle. You got a favourite motorcycle?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe the red one.”

“Yeah,” says my father, and he shifts into second and presses the accelerator to the floor. “That’s my favourite one, too.”

I think he’s just kidding. But as the truck picks up speed, I look at his face, and I can see that he’s serious. “It’s okay,” I say.

“UUUUUWHHEEEEE!”

I look in the side mirror. Franklin is standing in the grass, watching the truck bear down on the motorcycles. He doesn’t move, and he doesn’t wave his hands.

“I won’t mind if we don’t hit it.”

Just as the motorcycles vanish under the hood of the truck, my father whips the wheel hard to one side. The truck slowly leans over, picks up its feet like a dancing elephant, lumbers past the motorcycles and the tent, and makes its way back up to the road. At the top of the rise overlooking Bright Water, he pulls the truck onto the shoulder and stops. I look around, but I don’t see the buffalo anywhere.

“You know what’s wrong with this world?” he asks me.

I figure he’s testing to see if I’ve been listening. “Sure,” I say. “Whites.”

My father lights a cigarette. “Who told you that?”

“You did.”

“Indians,” says my father. “What’s wrong with this world is Indians.”

“Indians?”

“‘Cause they got no sense of humour.” He sucks on the cigarette and lets the smoke drift out of his mouth. “You know why Indians smoke?”

“This a joke?”

“‘Cause we like getting burned.”

“Lum smokes, but I don’t.”

“Franklin’s a son of a bitch,” says my father. “You know how he got elected chief?”

“He won the election?”

“He bought votes.” I don’t say anything. I can’t tell if my father is angry or sad. And I don’t want to ask. “Ten bucks,” he says. “That’s what a vote was worth.”

“Lum and him don’t get along too well.”

“A lousy ten bucks.”

The buffalo appear out of nowhere and begin moving towards the truck. Maybe they recognize it. Maybe they’re just curious. They come slowly. And then they stop and turn back into rocks.

“Come on,” says my father, and he gets out of the truck.

He walks over to the fence, takes off his hat, and throws in a handful of pebbles. “Watch this,” he says. My father shakes his hat at the buffalo. They don’t move. He shakes his hat again. “You see that?”

“Yeah,” I say. “They’re too smart for that trick.”

“You know all about tricks, do you?”

“Cows will come running,” I say. “Horses, too. But buffalo are smart.”

My father shakes the hat some more. Nothing. “Buffalo are stupid,” says my father. “The ones who stayed behind are stupid.” He dumps the pebbles out of his hat. “Just like Indians.” He sits down in the grass, leans against a fence post, and pulls his hat down over his eyes. The sun is still above the mountains, but it’s getting late and I want to head home.

“Auntie Cassie’s back,” I say, hoping he’s not planning on taking a nap.

The buffalo stay where they are. A large calf takes a few steps towards us and then thinks better of it and backs up.

“She travels all over the world,” I say. “She’s got some great stories.”

At first, I think my father has gone to sleep. I don’t hear him the first time because of the wind and because his voice is too low. “Are they still there?” he whispers.

“Who?”

“The buffalo.”

“Yeah,” I say.

My father nods his head, but if I hadn’t been looking right at him, I wouldn’t have seen it.

“Ready?” he says.

“Sure,” I say.

Suddenly, my father leaps to his feet and shouts and waves his arms back and forth. “Bang,” he yells. “Bangbangbangbangbang-bang!” The buffalo back up a few steps and stop. My father raises his arm and works it like a rifle. “Bone-hard stupid,” he says. “That’s why it won’t work.”

“What?”

My father brushes the dirt off his jeans. “Franklin’s new idea.”

“The motorcycles?”

“When Franklin bought that herd two years ago, there were over one hundred and fifty head. You see one hundred and fifty buffalo now?”

“What happened to the rest of them?”

“Disappeared,” says my father. “They just disappeared.”

“I guess that’s not too good for the tourist business.”

My father picks up a rock and sidearms it at one of the fence posts. “You know why tourists come out here?” he says.

“Indians?”

“Nope.”

“Buffalo?”

“Hell, roadkill is more exciting.”

“The mountains?”

“The space,” says my father. “They travel around the world to Bright Water because they’ve never seen space like this.”

“I wouldn’t mind a job where I had to travel,” I say.

“And it scares the shit out of them.” My father walks back to the truck and unzips his pants. He stands by the rear wheels, and as he pees, he waves his cock from side to side, splashing the tires and the side of the truck. “This is the way we should have signed those treaties.” My father shakes himself and zips his pants. “You want to drive?”

“We’re off the reserve,” I say.

“So?”

“I don’t have a licence.”

My father smiles and throws me the keys. “It’s okay,” he says. “Neither do I.”

I slide into the driver’s seat and glance at the shifting pattern on the knob. My father leans forward on the dash and looks out the window.

“You know her?”

I don’t see her at first. And then I do. The girl from Happy Trails. She stands perfectly still in the high grass, facing into the wind. “She’s from Georgia,” I say. “She’s looking for a duck.”

“Well, that’s a start,” says my father, and he reaches over and turns the key in the ignition. I don’t have the clutch in and the truck lurches forward. “Take your time,” he says. “Show her the buffalo.”

I let the clutch out slowly and get the truck rolling before I try to give it any gas, and this works pretty well. I don’t stall it, and it doesn’t jump around too much. And once I’m safely in second gear, there’s nothing to do but watch the road and steer. Up ahead, there’s a dead porcupine by the side of the road. But I’m in third gear already, and we pass it by without even slowing down.

I
t’s late by the time we get back to Truth. As we make the turn at the level crossing and come back along Division South, I tell my father he can just drop me off at Santucci’s.

“You worried or something?”

“Nope,” I say. “It’s easier for you to turn around there.”

My father swings the truck in tight against the curb. I open the door and start to get out. “You forgetting something?” he says.

I look at him for a clue.

“Don’t look at me,” he says. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“This about the tent?”

“Man’s got to look out for himself.”

“I told Franklin I was sorry,” I say.

My father sighs and reaches into his pocket. He takes out a wad of money and pulls a ten off the top. “What’s this look like?”

“Ten dollars.”

“Son,” says my father, “you’re an aboriginal genius.” He sticks the ten in my shirt pocket and lights a cigarette. “So, what you going to do with all that money?”

I take the ten out of my pocket and fold it up nice and neat. “Maybe I’ll buy a vote,” I say.

“You got a smart mouth.” My father smiles. “I’ll buy three.”

“You can’t vote three times.”

My father takes two more tens out of his pocket and drops them in my lap. “The hell I can’t.”

I don’t know if he’s fooling or not, so I let the tens stay in my lap.

“Don’t spend it all in one place.” My father blows a jet of smoke against the windshield. It hits the glass and curls back into the cab. “You have a good time today?”

“Yeah,” I say. “The motorcycles were fun.”

“Yeah, they were.”

I open the door and jump down. “Maybe I could help you tomorrow.”

“I can hardly afford me.”

“I could drive.”

My father smiles and revs the engine. “Today was fun,” he says. “Tomorrow is business.”

“You going to get Franklin’s guns?”

“Franklin can get his own damn guns,” says my father. “Got to take the work that pays.”

The sun is behind the mountains now. The sky darkens down, the shadows stretch out, and for that moment, just before evening finds its way into night, the air freshens, the colours swell, and the prairies burn with light.

“Tell your mother I said it was okay.” My father gives me a wink and shuts the door.

If I’m really lucky, my mother will be working late, fixing someone’s hair, and I’ll be able to waltz through the door, say my hellos, and slip into the back before she notices that the light has disappeared, but when I get there, I can see that the lights in the shop are out, and this is bad news. It means my mother is done for the day and is in the back waiting for me. I can tell her that Lum and I were down by the river, and we just lost track of time. I use this a lot and am not sure if it works anymore. Or I could tell her the truth, that I went to Bright Water with my father to help him deliver four speakers and two motorcycles with sidecars.

Telling the truth is always chancy. My mother might not be upset at all, but this is not a sure thing. I have seen her get upset over nothing, and other times, she lets serious matters go by without so much as giving them a glance.

When we were living in Bright Water, my father had a trick of coming home late or drunk or both. He would walk up on the front porch and sit down on the bench. Sometimes he would sit there silently. Sometimes he would sit there and sing to himself. “Dad’s home.”

“Eat your food.”

Some evenings, my mother would open the door for him, and he would wander in as if he had been lost all that time in the dark. Some evenings, she would tell me to open the door. But most of the time, she would sit on the couch and watch television and leave him to himself on the porch.

“What about dad?”

“He can come in whenever he wants.”

I don’t know why my father stayed on the porch. Maybe he was embarrassed because he had been drinking. Maybe he was angry that my mother wouldn’t come out of the house and help him in.

“How about I go out and see if he’s okay?”

“How about you finish your food.”

My mother would sit in the house and my father would sit on the porch until it got dark and the air cooled. Then he would get up and walk to the garage.

As I open the door, I reach up and hold the bell. I slide through the door and close it behind me as quietly as I can and stand in the shop and wait. Nothing. I listen for the television, but I don’t hear it.

The place is spooky. No sound. No lights. I make my way to the back, and when I get there, everything is dead black. I feel for the wall and the light switch, and as I do, I hear a movement in front of me, and before I can say or do anything, something large and heavy strikes me in the chest and I go down. I probably yell, but the first thing I hear is Soldier.

“Rrrruuuufff!”

“Hey!”

“Grrrrrr!”

“Knock it off.”

I get up and find the light. Soldier pulls his ears down and does his little doggie dance.

“So, you got home okay.” Soldier wiggles to the couch and settles in against the coffee table. “And I suppose you think I’m happy to see you.”

There’s no note, and the only thing in the refrigerator that I can
heat, without having to cook it, is a small bowl of brown beans. I look in the oven just to be sure, and then I butter up a couple of pieces of bread and make myself a bean sandwich. With ketchup.

I flip through the channels. There’s an old western, a hockey game, and Bugs Bunny. “How about it?” I ask Soldier. “Indians or cartoons?”

It’s not a very good western. It’s all about some white guy who wants to be an Indian. The regular Indians put him through a ceremony where they force sticks through his chest and make him run around this pole dragging a couple of buffalo skulls behind him. I look, but I can’t see if the skulls have any holes in them. The guy staggers through the ceremony without passing out or throwing up and gets to marry the chief’s daughter. There’s some nice scenery and some okay music.

There was a pattern to those evenings. My father would sit on the porch until it got dark. Then he would go to the garage, open all the doors and windows, turn on the saw, and crank up the radio as far as it would go. Even with the windows in my bedroom closed, the noise went through the house like a hard wind. I knew my mother could hear it, and I guess my father knew she could hear it, too.

I always thought that she would get tired of the noise and would go out and tell him to keep it down. That’s what she told me whenever I played my radio too loud or had the television set too high. Some nights, the noise was worse than others, and Soldier would sneak into my room, climb on the bed, and lie across my feet.

“Don’t be such a wuss,” I’d tell him. “He’s not mad at you.”

I don’t know what my father did in the garage, but he would run the saw for hours. I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I would lie in bed and listen to the pitch of the motor. Every so often you would hear the blade slow down and dig in, and I would imagine him standing in sawdust and wood chips, slowly cutting things into pieces.

It’s a little boring being in the shop alone. Soldier is asleep, so there’s no one to talk with. The movie is boring, too, but the buffalo skulls that the guy drags around behind him remind me of what my
father said, and that gets me thinking about the skull that Lum and I found.

“What do you figure?” I ask Soldier. “You remember a bullet hole?”

Soldier grunts and his sides quiver, but he’s just dreaming.

“You stay here,” I say. “I’ll check it out.”

Climbing up is easy, but when I get out on the rafter, I can’t see the skull. I crawl along the rafter all the way to the middle, but the skull isn’t there. I go back and try another rafter. Same thing.

I find the skull on the third rafter, but by then, I’m feeling uneasy and I’m thinking that the skull may have been moving around in the dark, playing a game.

I check the ribbon. One end is hooked to the nail and the other end is still tied to the skull, so there’s no way it can get loose. I can’t see very well, but as I run my hands around it, I find a hole in the side of the skull. The hole is not exactly round. It’s more jagged and uneven. I am sitting on the rafter running my finger around the hole when I hear the front doorbell. Soldier hears it, too, and he wakes up and begins barking.

“It’s just us,” my mother shouts.

I start back along the rafter as fast as I can. I’m hoping that my mother stops in the shop and cleans the sink or checks the hair dryer or something, but she keeps coming. Just as I get to the end of the rafter and put my foot on the ladder, she passes beneath me, and I have to pull back into the shadows. Auntie Cassie is with her.

“What a good dog,” says my mother, and Soldier goes all happy and snorty.

Auntie Cassie walks around the room with her hands on her hips. “Jesus, Helen,” she says. “Where are the windows?”

My mother scratches Soldier’s ears and rubs his chest. “You want some coffee?”

“Elvin help out at all?”

I’m stuck, and there isn’t much I can do about it. I try to get comfortable, but sitting on the rafter is hard. The board is skinny, and it cuts into my butt. I can feel parts of me going to sleep.

“There’s tea, too,” my mother says.

Auntie Cassie sits down in the chair. Soldier gets up and goes over to her and begins sniffing.

“So,” says my mother, “you going to say anything to him?”

“Like what?” says auntie Cassie.

“Maybe he’ll want to help.”

Soldier starts licking auntie Cassie’s hands. He does it to everybody, and I figure licking’s one of his favourite things. The bean sandwich in my stomach begins to move around. I shift my butt and try to get comfortable, but each time I move, dust floats off the rafters and tumbles into the light.

“There’s always someone who wants to tell you how to run your life.”

“No danger of that,” says my mother. “Don’t know anyone who can tell you a thing.”

“Sure as hell no point making the same mistake twice,” says auntie Cassie.

Some nights, especially when it was warm, my father would sleep in the garage and only come into the house in the morning for breakfast.

“Hi, dad.”

“Yeah.”

“What were you doing?”

“What?”

“In the garage. What were you making?”

“Breakfast ready yet?”

“Maybe next time I could help you.”

“There any coffee?”

You would expect that they would fight, that whatever sent my father to the garage and kept my mother in the house would be too much for either of them to contain. But they didn’t. At least, not that I ever saw. My father would come in, sit at the table, and wait to be fed. And my mother would feed him.

The conversation is just getting interesting when Soldier stops licking auntie Cassie’s hands and goes back to the couch. He sniffs at the
couch and then looks around the room, as if he’s lost something.

“If it were me,” says my mother, “I’d say something.”

“That’s because you’re a romantic,” says auntie Cassie.

“Nothing wrong with a little romance,” says my mother.

“Lasts about as long as cut flowers,” says auntie Cassie.

Soldier drags his nose across the floor, looking like a bloodhound from a cartoon. When he gets directly below me, he sits down and looks up. His ears arch, and he begins making low whining sounds in his throat.

My mother stands up and goes to the closet. “What are you going to do now?”

“What I always do,” says auntie Cassie.

My mother is in the closet for a moment, and when she comes out, she has a suitcase in her hand. “Then you might as well take this,” she says.

When Soldier sees the suitcase, he stands up and trots over to my mother. He sniffs at the case and tries to reach it with his tongue. It’s no big deal. I’ve seen the case before, and I know what’s in it.

“Here you go,” says my mother, and she holds the suitcase out to auntie Cassie.

Baby clothes.

I’ve opened the case lots of times, and inside are my old baby clothes. I found it one year at the back of the closet when I was looking for Christmas presents. I thought that my mother had put the baby clothes in the suitcase just to throw me off from finding something more interesting, so I checked to see if there was a false bottom or something hidden in the lining or the pockets.

Some of the clothes are really stupid, and some of them are cute in a goofy sort of way, but I can’t remember ever wearing any of them. A few are still in cellophane wrapping as if they have never been used.

“I know it wasn’t your fault,” says my mother.

Auntie Cassie doesn’t move. She stays in the chair. I can’t see exactly what she is doing, but I can feel that the two of them are thinking about fighting. “Then what have you got to be angry about?” says auntie Cassie. She says it casually, as if she’s checking on the time.

“Nothing,” says my mother. “It’s your life.”

“Absolutely,” says auntie Cassie.

My mother walks to the chair and puts the suitcase on auntie Cassie’s lap. “So, here it is,” she says.

“You know what you need?”

“Keep it down,” says my mother, and she looks back at my bedroom.

“What you need,” whispers auntie Cassie, “is a man.”

My mother sits down and leans against the back of the couch and closes her eyes. “Had one.”

“I didn’t mean Elvin,” says auntie Cassie.

“Neither did I,” says my mother.

What I can’t figure out is why my mother is giving auntie Cassie my baby clothes. Or why auntie Cassie would want them.

“Don’t you think fifteen years is a long time to carry a grudge?”

“Sixteen,” says my mother. “And nobody’s carrying anything.”

“This has nothing to do with him, you know,” says auntie Cassie.

“So, why’d you come back?”

I can’t see my mother’s face, but I can hear her voice just fine, and I know I won’t be coming down any time soon.

“Well, saying ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t going to change things, is it?” says auntie Cassie.

“A little late for that now,” says my mother.

“Don’t worry,” says auntie Cassie. “I’m not going to stay.”