Mean Spirit, page 26
“Yeah. How much is it?” Stace asked, digging in his pockets.
“Five dollars a night.” He looked nervous. He’d never seen the young Lakota Sioux man without his hat. He was surprised to see Stace’s long hair.
Stace reached into his pocket and handed the clerk a five-dollar bill, plus some change. He gave him a warning, “Next time you knock.”
The young clerk closed the door behind himself. Lionel Tall said, “They’re reading your notes.”
“I know. Those notes are all lies. I wanted to mislead them.” He made a bed for himself on the floor so that the older man could sleep more comfortably on the bed.
Lionel looked at Stace. “The undertaker?”
Stace nodded. “A lie. I hope.”
“I don’t know about this, Stace. It’s too dangerous.”
Stace took off his pants and climbed under the sheet on the floor. Lionel Tall pulled a blanket up over himself, leaving his naked brown chest exposed. He was thinking.
Lionel Tall never slept well in beds other than his own. He lay back and stared into the darkness. He was remembering the past. Tall had been a young man when the Ghost Dance took place. A new messiah, a mixed-blood Indian, had gone north and west out of Nevada and preached a new faith. Wevokah, he was called; Jack Wilson was his Christian name. He was an Indian who was thought to be Christ, and he preached that if the people danced and believed, the buffalo would return, life would return to what it had been before settlers and hunters, and the ancestors would return. The ghost dancers wore muslin shirts and fringed garments, white buckskin with the images of life painted on them. They were painted with yellow stars and the moon, with blue turtles and birds, painted with the world and the sky. They would not be injured. Bullets would not penetrate these garments, the messiah said, and how they had wanted to believe it, had to believe it to have the slightest ray of hope to continue. It was a faith of survival, of the desire for life. It was water for the thirsty, food for the hungry. It was survival.
Lionel was thirty that year. He was young and taken up with the hope. He believed the prophet Wevokah. He went away from his home in order to spread the new religion in Canada, up where the Cree people lived. He rode a white horse and covered its back with white muslin and with painted red hands and blue horses. He could see it as he looked back now, could smell the horse and see its breath in the cold air. He remembered the sound of his horse’s hooves traveling over the borderland between countries and peoples. And then the snow. It was deep and hard on the surface and the horse’s legs were cut by the crust of ice. They bled from the cuts and left a red trail behind them. But when Tall reached Canada, along that red broken trail, the Cree rejected all his attempts at conversion. Tall remembered what the Cree leaders told him, that survival was their religion, and that was enough to occupy them, just finding food. It was a hard winter and Lionel thought about staying among the Cree and he would have, but he had a young child at home and he was anxious to return.
It was on Christmas Day when Lionel left Canada and began the trek homeward. And it was on Christmas Day that the Sioux people were murdered by the cavalry all riding uniform gray horses.
When he rode in from the Badlands, he found his people gone, the bodies of children frozen in the snow. The frozen women lay in broken clusters where they’d tried to escape. When Tall saw his wife, the young son in her arms, he sat on the ice beside them. He tried to put the frozen organs back into the boy; they had spilled out onto the snow. He prayed to bring them back to life. He sat there in the blue-white light of evening until his hands were frostbitten and his clothing had frozen to earth. He didn’t feel the cold. And finally a white nurse who had worked among the Sioux chipped him from the ice, took the man’s arm and led him away. She was crying. Tears had frozen on her skin.
Lying in bed that night in Oklahoma, Tall still grieved. He remembered the body of a small girl whose cap had been embroidered and beaded with the American flag. She lay there, one of her blue hands stretched out, as if asking for help. Uncle Sam was a cold uncle with a mean soul and a cruel spirit. And the world was full of many visions gone awry, which was the reason he wanted Red Hawk to go home, and why he no longer placed stock in any belief except for the laws of nature and wilderness. He thought about Stace and about faith, and how vulnerable human men were. They were soft and hopeful as children, and their lives easily dispensed with. That was the history of the world. But he never spoke these words to Stace. He remained silent. He wasn’t one to sit in judgment on any other man, but he was thinking that Stace believed too deeply in the people who paid his wages. He thought that even a prophet, even a warrior, could not survive the ways of the Americans, especially the government with rules and words that kept human life at a distance and made it live by their regulations and books. The older man was restless. He turned over, then turned again.
Stace propped himself up on his elbow. “What’s on your mind?”
“I can’t sleep.”
That night, while Stace grew more and more homesick and lonely, and while Lionel Tall was disturbed about the young men’s new ways, Hale drove into town with a truckful of cattle. He was going to cross-breed them with the buffalo and start a new herd. He’d turn the “Hale” grass into pure gold in his pocket. The cattle were crowded together and they moaned.
Belle woke that next morning to a loud droning sound. Something was gone wrong in her beehives. She put on her robe and went outside to look, and what she saw there was the herd of buffalo and the new collection of cattle. Their presence disturbed her bees. They were too close to the hives, and it was a well-known fact among beekeepers that bees hated buffalo, cattle, and mules, and true to that belief, the bees put up an angry roar from inside their hives. They were so distraught that morning that they attacked Belle’s chickens, and as she stepped outside she saw one of her laying hens covered with bees. It writhed in pain, bees buried among its golden feathers. Then, as Belle watched, the hen went limp and died of a poison that had its beginning in flowers and sweetness.
Still wearing her robe, Belle dug in the ground and buried her hen. Then she set about moving her temperamental bees to a new location. Down at the creek was a fresh water spring. It would be a perfect place to take the bees, she thought. There were wildflowers, and later in the season there would be fields of sweet clover.
She hitched one of the workhorses to the wagon, then went indoors and put on her white beekeeper’s clothing. The veil hung loose about her face and shoulders. She taped the sleeves of her shirt and put on her gauntlets before she went back outside, covered the three hives with white canvas and lifted them into the wagon. The hives were still light; they were still empty of honey. As they rode away toward the creek, the bees hummed loudly. They were agitated. The workhorse that remained behind called out to its partner. It was jealous that the other horse was able to work, but nervous about the nature of its job. The call was answered by the horse Belle drove. Then there was just the clip clop of hooves and the woman dressed in white sitting tall, holding the reins like a bride or queen from another country.
When they reached the fresh spring and its little pool, Belle lifted down the boxes, but she left the bees covered until they settled down. Then she uncovered the hives and sat on the new grass in front of them, watching the mysterious, intelligent worlds contained in the white boxes. Then she turned the horse and the empty wagon back toward home.
* * *
“Damn it.” Ballard slammed the flat of his hand on the table. His face darkened. “My job’s at stake here, and now you want me to call Washington and tell them you’re taking time off?” He glared at Stace, then took a deep breath and a sip of his Coca-Cola and said more calmly, “What is it exactly you want to do?”
“I’m going up to the hills and rest. I’m looking for something and I need quiet to find it.” Stace looked at his colleagues. He stood in front of the window. The sunlight from Ballard’s hotel room window was behind his head. He could see them clearly, but they couldn’t catch his own peculiar expression. He felt a sudden dislike for them, particularly Ballard. He needed distance. “I want to go up to the hills and see if I can find some old-timers. People down here are close-mouthed. They’re afraid. Everyone we’ve talked to up to now has either refused to talk or changed their story.” He tried to sound confident that he could collect information pertinent to the case. But it wasn’t information he was seeking. He had a feeling that he should go up beyond the roads, up to the bluffs and ridges. He knew that the facts weren’t always all they needed. He didn’t know what he wanted; he just had a feeling.
“If you’re looking for something, you turn things over. Right, Levee?” Ballard wanted encouragement. “You lift them up like a rock covering a scorpion and you look underneath. You’re not supposed to go sit in some hills and dream and talk to people who haven’t even been civilized.”
“I need time.”
Ballard turned to face Levee. “He needs time. Do I hear him right? I’m going to get fired and he wants to go think.”
Levee shrugged. Stace was his friend and he trusted his judgment, but he wasn’t taking sides.
“Look,” Stace confronted him. “You’re the one who’s been dragging your heels.”
Levee softened. “Well, there’s nothing we can do right now anyway, is there?”
Ballard turned away from the younger men. “Remind me not to hire another Indian. They want time off for family. They want time off for feasts and ceremonies. Now he wants time off to think.” Ballard was fuming. He picked up the phone.
“You can’t call Washington from here. The operator, remember?” Levee pointed to his ear.
Ballard slammed the phone back down. “Okay,” he said. He looked at Stace. “But be back on Tuesday. No later!”
Stace didn’t move.
“Well, go on before I change my mind!”
“There’s one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I need my pay. You have my paycheck. I’m going to buy a horse.”
Ballard glared at Stace. “Add to my list of reasons for not hiring Indians that they buy horses.” He opened a drawer, shuffled through some papers, and handed Stace his paycheck. “What do you need with a horse?”
Stace didn’t answer. He remained standing in position with an expectant look on his face. Levee turned away to hide his smile.
“Now what?” Ballard said.
“I need it cashed.”
Ballard reddened, but he unlocked the small gray cashbox he carried whenever he was on assignment, expecially for Stace, since no bank trusted his dark skin.
On his way out the door, Stace looked back. “We’re barking up the wrong tree, you know.” He closed the door, then remembered something and opened it again. Both men looked in his direction. Ballard’s eyes darkened.
“By the way,” Stace said. “Does the sheriff know that we are investigating crimes in his municipality?”
Levee nodded.
“Is he cooperating?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You trust him?”
Ballard’s face turned purple. “I thought you were leaving. Of course I trust him. What else? Now get out of here.”
Stace went down the stairs, noisily, and out the hotel door. Lately, he felt uncomfortable with the other men. He thought it must have been those nights spent with Lionel Tall. Tall felt like home to Stace, in the color of his skin, the tone of his voice, felt like the comfort of South Dakota and other Indian people. Tall reminded him of the great differences between him and his co-workers.
And then, Ballard’s impatience bothered Stace. Ballard was so anxious to get on with this case and close it down that Stace thought they’d arrest anyone and say it was done. And they still couldn’t even move on it until something happened on Indian land.
Stace put his hands in his pockets and walked up the road to the stables where he’d seen a sleek black mare, a talkative and energetic horse that had been sold off by one of the Creek Indians who’d had to move to the outskirts of Tulsa and had no way to feed or care for a horse in the tar paper village they’d gone to inhabit.
She was a head-shy horse. After he paid for her, Stace stood carefully at her side and slipped the bridle over her ears without touching so much as a hair, then he mounted her. It felt good to be astride a horse again. He rode up toward the bluffs.
* * *
One morning, when the corn was only six inches high, the clothing was stolen off Belle’s scarecrow. At the same time, three large holes mysteriously appeared in the cornfield. It worried her. A cornfield was the very heart of life and Belle nursed her corn. She knew it needed more than water, light, and food; it needed the care of a woman. So she was filling the holes back in with a small hand shovel when Will Forrest’s car drove slowly up the road, accompanied by the runners.
Belle stood up slowly, her hand on the ache in her back. She watched as Will opened the car door. Nola stepped down out of the car. She was dressed all in white. She carried a white parasol. The breeze ruffled it. Even dressed this way, she looked so much like her grandmother, Lila, with her widow’s peak, that Belle almost called her by that name. And Belle knew instantly that the girl was pregnant. Her eyes could almost see the other life inside the beautiful young girl. Nola’s narrow hips had shifted a bit, and widened. Her skin was softer. She looked like a new fruit tree blooming in spring before it had leaves, a tree preparing already for the sweet fruits of survival.
Will looked back at his wife, waved, and drove away. It was plain for anyone to see that he was in love. His eyes were filled with adoration for the young, dark girl. Still holding the small shovel, Belle walked toward Nola. She could smell the blooming lilacs. “Shoot, girl, as far as he’s concerned,” she told her, “no flies could ever land on you.”
Nola looked at the older woman. She didn’t seem to believe what Belle’s sharp eyes had just seen on the face of Will.
There was something different about Nola, something changed and older. It wasn’t just the widow’s peak or that she so closely resembled Lila Blanket, but the way in which she looked at things. She wore one of Lila’s vigilant expressions as she took in the sober sight of the empty barnyard. Then she looked at the pasture. The land was bare. In only a few days, the buffalo had pulled the tall grass up by its roots and eaten the land down to nothing, and now they were standing on the desolate-looking earth and their own manure with vacant eyes, eyes that had seen too much. They were on their way down in the world, were themselves fallen people, and they knew it and so did all others who looked sadly on.
Nola said nothing, but Belle knew in the way she looked, the way she turned her head, that the girl understood. Nola touched her stomach as if assuring herself that, yes, life would continue, that she was not as barren as the fields were becoming, the burned forests, the overgrazed land, the core drillings, as empty as the dark, tragic eyes of the buffalo. Belle saw this gesture and knew her first impression was true, that the turning over of life was at work again. “It smells like a feed lot, doesn’t it?” Belle said. But Nola only looked out toward the fruit trees. “Where are your bees?”
“I had to move them.” Belle sounded shaky. “The buffalo disturbed them. They’re down by the spring. You’ll see them down there.”
Just then Rena opened the screen door and waved. She had a big smile on her face. “Hurry up!” But even after Nola went inside and picked up the lunch basket, and as they walked to the spring on Belle’s land, Nola was already calculating how to give some of her money to the Grayclouds without embarrassing them. She thought she would have Will check on her trust and let her know how much she could spare and then ask Mr. Forrest to help her find a way to get the money to the proud people who had been so good to her in this world, loving her like one of their own.
That afternoon, the watchers followed the girls down to the spring and creek. Other than that, Rena had planned on it being a carefree day. She packed food enough for the men, and each of the girls carried a large willow basket down through the green meadow, into the brush, and past the humming beehives.
Before they ate, they waded in the water. They were cautious on the mossy underwater stones. At first they tucked their skirts inside the legs of their underwear, but they gave up and wore only their bloomers, hanging their damp skirts over the bushes to dry in the sun. In her cotton bloomers, Rena felt embarrassed. She knew the watchers were hidden in the shade of the woods, looking in their direction. It disturbed her. She thought they should leave Nola alone now, that enough time had passed to smooth out the crashing currents their lives had been. She looked toward the trees. “Do they bother you?”
“No, they watch over me. I feel safe with them here.” She spoke softly.
Nola lay back and listened to the drone of the bees. She was glad they were bringing in their gatherings of pollen, working to care for the queen and her new life. She closed her eyes, listening to the water, the bees, the breeze in the grasses. Rena looked at her friend’s closed lids until they were still. Then she gazed out at the woodlands on the other side of the creek. Her golden skin was flushed with the sun’s heat.
The creek came from a spring that existed on Belle’s land. It was called The Place Where Earth Has No Bottom, and was the watering place of the old ones, the quenching water for the air and sky. It was a place of peace.
After a while Nola woke. The sun was full in the sky. The girls fed the watchers and went to sit beneath a shade tree on the bank of water. Nola opened the basket. Rena watched the small lives in the water, the water walkers, minnows, and the tadpoles. “Don’t you ever wish you’d wake up one day like them, and be able to live in two worlds?”
Nola looked gravely at Rena. There was deep meaning behind these words. “Yes, I do.” Her eyes were troubled. “I do.” And after she said these words, her face looked grieved. She stood up abruptly as if in pain, but she masked her feelings by laughing like a child and she went splashing down into the water.
