Weedflower (18 page)

“Anyone bring matches?” said Joji. Sumiko had once heard that before camp he had been a Goody Two-shoes, straight-A student.

Everybody shook their heads no. “I’m thirsty,” said one boy.

“We’ll drink chicken blood!” Joji said, but nobody seemed to like that idea.

One of the boys was in the Camp Three Boy Scouts, so he got assigned the task of starting a fire from scratch. They made a pile of the driest sticks they could find and left him to his chore. The chicken just wandered around clucking. She walked right up to Sumiko and clucked and clucked. Sumiko reached down and petted her. The chicken seemed to like that.

They waited and waited for the Boy Scout to start a fire. “I’m getting blisters,” he finally said.

“Hurry up before it starts raining!” commanded Joji.

“Well, who’s going to kill it even if I start a fire?”

“I will,” Joji said. He stood up and grabbed the chicken. Sumiko had just managed to close her eyes when she heard the crack of the hen’s neck.

“Hey,” said a boy, “I’ve got matches after all!”

He started the fire while the rest of them tried to pluck the chicken. Joji looked at Sumiko. “Come on, Sumiko, help us. It’s a woman’s job. Weren’t you from a farm?”

“It was a flower farm.”

“A farm girl is a farm girl.”

Sumiko had never plucked a chicken before. She and Sachi plucked it but didn’t do a very good job. It
was hard to believe how many feathers the darn thing had. The little downiest feathers were nearly impossible to pull out. She seemed to vaguely remember something about boiling a chicken briefly before you plucked it. But that didn’t matter since they didn’t have a pot to boil it in. The boys tried to make a spit, but the chicken kept falling into the fire. Finally it started to rain, and they decided it was too late to eat the chicken. They dug a hole with their hands and buried it. Sumiko and Sachi started to cry over the poor chicken. Even one of the younger boys started to cry.

Joji stamped on the dirt over the chicken, then said to Sumiko, “Say a few words.”

“About the chicken?” she asked.

“Yeah, you’re the one she liked the best.”

Sumiko knelt near the burial site. “Urn. Dear … chicken. We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to kill you. Well, we did mean to kill you, actually. Um. We’re sorry we didn’t eat you because now your life was wasted.”

“Her life wasn’t wasted, her death was,” the Boy Scout said.

Then everybody started acting like Sumiko had a special line of communication to the chicken. “Tell it next time we steal a chicken, we’ll do it right.” “Tell it we’re sorry if we hurt it.” “Tell it we hope it goes to heaven.”

After that the kids told a few ghost stories while Sumiko lay on her back and let rain fall on her face. It felt nice to be outside the camp. She tried to imagine her farm but couldn’t picture it for some reason. Those days seemed far, far away.

Eventually, the kids trudged back to camp. As they got closer Sumiko could see that all but the essential lights were out—just a few dim lights illuminating the desert. It must have been late. Rain washed all over them. As they walked one of the boys started singing. He had a beautiful voice, as good as someone in the movies. When he sang “Silent Night,” the whole universe seemed silent, except for that amazing voice.

25

S
UMIKO KEPT HER GARDEN UP OVER THE WINTER, MAKING
sure there were always at least a few blooms. But the fence really did destroy the ambience. One late January day when Sumiko and Tak-Tak were playing
hanafuda
off camp behind some brush near some fields, Frank showed up. She hadn’t seen him for a while, and she immediately had two thoughts:

1. She was glad to see him.
   
2. She was mad because he was was Indian and the Indians had put up a fence.
   

Even though it was cool out, Tak-Tak immediately cried out, “We forgot to bring you ice!”

Frank smiled and sat down to look over the
hanafuda
cards. “You like cards a lot?”

“Yes. I like marbles, too, but I’m not very good at it. And once I went fishing with my cousins. I liked that, too. I caught one fish.”

Sumiko noticed that Frank often glanced at her even when talking to Tak-Tak. She pretended to ignore Frank and concentrate on her cards. Then he stopped glancing at her and started ignoring
her,
so she said, “I don’t like the fence the Indians put up.” She braced for an argument.

“I don’t like it either,” he said, and there went her argument.

She tried again. “Nobody has ever tried to escape.”

Frank changed the subject. “Did you ask your cousin about meeting my brother?”

Tak-Tak asked, “Bull or Ichiro?”

“Bull,” said Sumiko. “No.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t come up.”

Frank didn’t reply. He suddenly looked bored with the subject, or maybe he was bored with Sumiko. Then he asked with irritation, “Why didn’t it come up?

‘“Cause.”

“Do you have electricity?” Tak-Tak blurted.

“No,” said Frank. “No running water, either.”

He pretended to reach behind Tak-Tak’s head and pull out a piece of gum. “That’s mine!” said Tak-Tak.

Frank handed the gum to Tak-Tak but looked at Sumiko the whole time. “I had a dream about you last night. I hardly ever remember my dreams.”

“What was it?”

“You were introducing your cousin to my brother. Mohave value our dreams. Sometimes when my grandfather had an important dream, he used to say, ‘I see brightly’ That’s how I know you’re going to ask your cousin.”

“Maybe. I had a dream about
you
. I dreamed we were floating down the river in a raft. I dreamed that twice.”

She was surprised at how interested he seemed.

“What else did you see?”

“There were waves like in the ocean.” He nodded seriously. “What do you think it means?” she asked.

“How would I know?” He squinted at her. “What’s that on your lips?”

“It’s lipstick I borrowed from my friend Sachi.”

“Is that the one who ran off the first time I saw you?”

“Yes.” Sumiko laughed. “She was scared of you.”

“She seems a little scary herself. But why are you wearing lipstick?”

“That’s what I asked her,” Tak-Tak chimed in.

She answered, “Because it’s red.”

“Your lips are already red,” Frank said.

“But they’re a different shade of red,” she said.
“Obviously.”

“Right, but—never mind.” He shook his head as if to rid himself of the illogical thoughts she was trying to put into his brain.

Tak-Tak said, “She was even wearing lipstick when she was working in her garden.”

Frank smiled at him. “That’s strange, huh?”

“Yes.”

To Sumiko, Frank said, “What kind of garden?”

“Some vegetables, a pond, and some flowers called ‘stock.’ They have a beautiful scent.”

“They stink funny,” said Tak-Tak, laughing.

Frank laughed too.

“It won third place in the camp competition,” Sumiko said defensively.

“Can I see your garden?”

“What for?”

“So I can describe it to my brother. Maybe we’ll have a garden with a pond too.” He paused. “Maybe we’ll have one in front and one in back.”

“I doubt if you’re allowed to walk around camp without a good reason,” Sumiko said.

Tak-Tak said to Sumiko, “We could take him when everybody else is at dinner.” Then he asked Frank,
“Want to play cards until then?” Frank raised his eyebrows at Sumiko before turning his attention to the cards. She didn’t say anything.
Maybe
it would be all right to bring him into the camp.

While it grew darker, Tak-Tak taught Frank a
hanafuda
game he had made up. The way Tak-Tak explained it didn’t make any sense, but Frank listened patiently. They both ignored Sumiko. When the dinner gongs started sounding, Tak-Tak said, “Come on!” Sumiko didn’t argue.

They slipped into camp, sticking to the shadows as Tak-Tak showed Frank some of the gardens: the rock gardens; the pond gardens; the gardens with carved Buddhas, vases, and warriors; the vegetable gardens; the waterfall gardens; and, finally, Sumiko and Mr. Moto’s garden. It stretched halfway across the length of the barrack. Some nights Mr. Moto took down the cheesecloth, but tonight the white cloth rippled above the plants.

“Do you like it?” Sumiko felt kind of shy to be showing him her garden. “It’s hard to see how pretty the flowers are in the dark.”

“I can see,” he said. “It looks like … you.”

Sumiko suddenly felt pleasure from that remark, like a tingling warmth through her whole body.
It looks like you
.

From somewhere outside the warmth, a boy called out, “An Indian! His father built the barbedwire fence!”

The warmth turned to a chill. Sumiko saw a swarm of boys running toward Frank, the dust swirling around their pounding feet as if they were creating smoke as they ran. Frank’s own feet also raised dust as he scrambled to the fence.

Sumiko shouted, “No!” But her voice got lost in the cries of the boys. She saw Frank’s shirt rip as he struggled through a break in the barbed wire. Some boys had already cut a hole in the fence. She screamed “No!” again as loudly as she could. But the boys didn’t seem to hear her—it was like yelling to a wave in the ocean. The boys caught Frank just outside the fence and surrounded him, pummeling him with their fists.

Sumiko found herself running before she was even fully aware that she
was
running. The fence dug into her arms as she pushed through to reach Frank. She felt the shock of wire ripping into her skin. The boys and Frank were like a big tumbleweed rolling over the desert. Sumiko screamed at them, “It wasn’t his father! His father is dead!”

She grabbed one boy by the collar of his shirt and tried to pull him away, but he pushed her to the ground. “Leave him alone!” she grunted as they wrestled for a moment.

She looked around wildly and spotted a mesquite branch on the ground. She picked it up and closed her eyes and prayed for one second. Then, keeping her
eyes closed, she swung the stick and felt it strike something hard. Everything was still and quiet. She opened her eyes. Blood dripped down the face of one of the boys; it was a black trickle in the night. The hurt boy looked at her, stunned. She felt kind of stunned herself. “I’m sorry,” she said, but she didn’t put the stick down. The boy ran off crying.

The other boys stared at Sumiko for a moment. One of them said, “You hit Kenjil” before they all ran off after their friend. They crawled through the wire and ran back into the camp.

Frank stood up, and he and Sumiko looked at each other. He was dirty, and a lump like a plum was already swelling on one of his cheeks.

“I tried to tell them,” she said.

Frank didn’t answer. “I’d better go. Will you be in trouble?”

“I don’t know.”

“He wasn’t hurt bad,” Frank said.

“It was bloody.”

“I don’t think it was bad,” he said.

“But are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He seemed annoyed with her. “You don’t have to protect
me
.” She just stared at his bruised face. He softened. “But thank you,” he said. “I mean it. So, come to the river with Bull on Saturday.”

“Why all the way to the river?”

“Because I don’t want to get beat up again. Eight o’clock Saturday morning. Just take the path straight to the river. Well find you.”

She realized then that Tak-Tak was standing beside her, and he held a stick too. “Did you hit anyone?” she asked.

“No, because nobody hit
you
.”

He leaned against her as they watched Frank walk off into the night. She had a funny feeling then, one that didn’t make any sense: Because she had protected Frank, she felt like he was now officially and definitely her friend.

26

S
UMIKO CLEANED HER SCRATCHED ARM WITH THE BUCKET
of water they always kept in their room. She hid her torn clothes in her suitcase under her cot. She thought she knew where the boy Kenji lived. She picked some stock for Kenji, even though most boys didn’t like flowers. But it was all she had to give him.