Watershed, page 5
Big Junior shook his head. He frowned and in his face I could see the subject change. “Let’s go fishing.”
*
So we went fishing. Big Junior’s feet were smaller than mine and he didn’t mind using an old pair of hip-waders. I put a graphite six-weight in his hands and tried to teach him how to roll cast. The air was icy and just a short distance up the mountain the air was not so clear. A freezing rain was falling gently on us and causing the guides on our rods to clog with ice. I told Big Junior I didn’t expect to catch any fish. I told him that I never expected to catch any fish and he laughed at that. I had to tie the flies onto the leader for him, because it turned out that Big Junior had enormous fingers, not so much long but fat like bratwurst, and it was clear that he would not be able to manipulate the tiny flies. Big Junior was a bit wild with the rod and I tried to stand clear of him when he attempted casts. It was unfortunate that he too could not stand clear, because he managed to hook his ear with a very strange motion that was preceded by him saying, “Looky here.”
“Hold still,” I said, trying to get his hand away from his ear so I could inspect the wound.
He swore a few times and I told him to let me see it. He moved his hand. The hook had gone cleanly through his lobe and luckily, although it must have hurt like hell, it hadn’t ripped him at all when he tugged at the line.
“Get it out,” he said.
“I’m going to have to cut it off,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my wire cutters.
“No!”
“Not your ear, Big Junior. The hook.”
“Just pull it out,” he said.
“It’s got a barb on it,” I said. “I can’t pull it out without ripping your ear. So I’m going to snip off the barb.” I showed him the wire cutters. “Then it will slide right out.” He didn’t make a noise as I cut through the hook, although I could tell it really hurt.
“There,” I said.
He rubbed his ear. “This is a dangerous sport.”
I agreed.
“Don’t shoot,” I said softly. The barrel of the revolver didn’t quite touch my seventeen-year-old head, but I felt its coldness nonetheless. The second and third cops circled, making comments about the length of our Afro hairdos and the fact that we were wearing army fatigue jackets.
“What did we do?” my friend Marvin asked, his face pressed against the hood of the car, his eyes on mine.
“What are you boys doing over here?” one of the cops asked.
“We were at a party,” I said.
The cop, I remember he smelled of Brut, kicked my feet farther apart and asked, “What kind of party?”
“Just a party,” Marvin said.
“This your car?” another cop.
“Yes,” I said.
“Mind if we search it?”
And then I could feel my grandfather and my father inside my head. I raised up, I think to the astonishment of the police, and turned around. I looked past the pistol at the first cop’s chest. “No, I don’t mind, Officer Toby, badge number three-six-nine. Search my car and explain probable cause to me while you do it.”
The third cop who had arrived in a car by himself came and stood close to me, his breath on my face. “You’re a smart one, are you?” he said.
“Robert,” I heard Marvin complain behind me.
I looked at the cop with the breath and I said, “Fuck you.” That’s the last thing I remembered of that evening. The next morning, as my father escorted me out of the police station, I saw the wall just inside the door streaked with red and I knew it was my blood and when the air hit me outside I had never felt so free in my life.
We walked down the creek, stepping carefully along the rocky bank all the way to the lake. Ice was forming in the slow water between the rocks near the edge. We reached the lake and stopped, looked across it. The snow settled and disappeared on its surface.
“This is where they found those FBIs,” Big Junior said, looking at the ground by his feet and then into the shallow water at the bank.
“Right here?” I asked.
“Around here someplace,” he said. “I’m an FBI. Did you know that?” He studied my confusion. “I’m a full-blooded Indian.” He laughed. “I heard those FBIs were bad. I heard they wasn’t no good.”
“How so?” I asked. My hands were getting really cold and I found myself pinching under my nails for feeling.
“They were crooked, people are saying.” His words were short, barked almost quietly. “I’d shoot any FBI if I had the chance.” He held up his hand like a gun and said, “Bang.” Big Junior nodded. “They’re the government, right? Well, I’m at war with the government. You know what I mean?”
I didn’t say anything.
“You are too.”
I looked at the shallows of the lake. “They found them floating face down in the water,” I said. “They were shot at close range.”
Big Junior nodded like the information was useful.
“What’s Louise into?” I asked.
“We didn’t catch any fish,” he said.
“It’s probably too cold,” I told him.
“We’ll try again when it’s warmer.”
Article 11. The aforesaid tribe acknowledges its dependence on the Government of the United States, and promises to be friendly with all the citizens thereof, and to commit no depredations or other violence upon such citizens. And should any one or more violate this pledge, and the fact be proved to the satisfaction of the President, the property shall be returned, or, in default thereof, or if injured or destroyed, compensation may be made by the Government out of the annuities. The aforesaid tribe is hereby bound to deliver such offenders to the proper authorities for trial and punishment, and are held responsible, in its tribal capacity, to make reparation for depredations so committed.
The tongue has mucous and serous glands. The mucous glands are located in the back, to the rear of the circumvallate papillae, although they are also found at the marginal parts. The serous glands are found only at the back of the tongue, near the taste buds. The fibrous septum consists of a vertical layer of fibrous tissue, extending throughout the entire length of the middle line of the tongue, from the base to the apex, although not quite reaching the dorsum. It is thicker behind than in front, and occasionally contains a small fibro-cartilage about a quarter of an inch in length. It is well displayed by making a vertical section across the organ.
3
The woman from the FBI was sitting in my cabin and asking me point blank if I had given a ride to a small Indian woman on Tuesday of the week the agents were killed. I looked at the woman; her hard eyes were searching me for an answer or some movement of a facial muscle that might tell her something, and I wondered briefly where she kept her gun and then I wondered why I hadn’t concerned myself with that question when the state cops were in my house. But I knew where they kept their guns.
“Did you give anyone a ride that day?” Special Agent Gladys Davies asked me again.
“No,” I said.
“I have a witness who says you did.”
“I drove by a woman,” I said, “but I didn’t pick her up.”
“Was she a small woman?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Little. Under five feet tall. Under four and a half feet tall.”
I shook my head.
“You’re sure?”
I nodded.
“Do you know a woman who fits that description?” she asked.
In my mind I was thinking “What description?” but I said, “I know some short people.”
“This woman would be an Indian.”
“I see.”
“Do you know any really short Indians?”
“Do you mean like midget short?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen such an individual?”
“You mean, a midget?”
“A midget Indian woman.”
“I don’t know. How would I know if she were Indian?”
Special Agent Davies stood up and shook my hand. “Well, thank you for your time. I’ll probably be coming back to talk to you again. You have a good day now.”
I waved to her like a moron as she drove away.
My tongue felt huge and dry in my mouth, as if it might choke me. Perhaps it already had. I found it difficult to swallow.
The lie was a great big fat one and I had more than a little sinking feeling. What was worse was that I did not know why I had lied. I had no real reason to suspect that Louise Yellow Calf was involved in the deaths of the two FBI agents, but things were not clear with her. In fact, I did have some idea why I had lied, although knowledge of a feeling doesn’t make it rational. I recognized that I was almost pathologically incapable of imparting anything but basic information to the FBI. Had she been asking me if I had seen the purse snatcher run past me on the street I might have answered her truthfully, but the whole feel of this thing was muddled and dicey. Although it would be dusk in just a couple of hours, and the sky promised more snow and the temperature seemed to be dropping like a shot bird, I decided to make the long drive down to Plata and to Louise’s house.
The sun was kissing the top of the horizon and the house was dark when I got there. No cars were parked in the yard. The wind whipped some loose paper across the drive and over the pasture to the east. A white-faced barn owl was sitting on a nearby telephone line and he was watching me, his face moving with me as I approached the porch. I climbed the steps to the door and knocked; the wood felt extra hard against my cold knuckles. I knocked again. Hearing no movement inside, I walked around the house looking for any kind of light or sign of presence. It struck me that perhaps the old woman had again been taken ill and that they were all at the hospital. I walked into the backyard and saw the stacked wood and the pile of poles sitting under a partially melted overlay of snow. I knocked on the back door. Snow started to fall and I zipped my parka up to my neck. I went back to the front porch and sat on the steps to wait for a while. The owl was still there, still watching.
When freezing, one thinks. I thought about my gut reaction to police. Young Hanson didn’t bother me; he was simply young Hanson, ex-wrestler, son of a woman who liked to chat in the market. But the state cops, with their attitudes and their swaggers and their stares, were a different matter. They were the same cops. They were the cops who said I looked like the 6-foot 8-inch, 250-pound robbery suspect when I was driving home from college.
They were the cops who pushed my face into the hood of my car while they checked my license and registration; one was pushing while the other stood back with his drawn pistol pointed at my head, again, just as my father told me it would happen. I kept my mouth shut that time. I didn’t want to have that stupid, bloody, free feeling once more; I didn’t want to hear the cop asking why I didn’t say “sir,” calling me “boy.”
And the woman from the FBI. Well, she was from the FBI. That seemed enough.
Half an hour passed and it was just too cold to continue waiting. My back was tightening and my face burned and hurt from the icy wind. It occurred to me again that they were probably at the hospital with another emergency; the old woman was probably stretched out on a gurney with some misdiagnosed, deadly disease that Hiram Kills Enemy had already told her she didn’t have. I could see them sitting in the lounge, Mary Brown, Big Junior and his fat wife, and Louise, and although I was feeling more than a little desperate, I was not going there. Instead I drove from Plata to the village of Rivertown and went into a tavern called the Stirrup. I stopped there because I liked the pun and I’d heard the food was decent. Moderately loud, two-stepping country music leaked out when a couple left. I noticed that the snow was falling heavily as I walked across the parking lot. Big flakes landed on my face and troubled my vision.
Inside the smoky place I sat in a booth with green vinyl seats and a pink tabletop and waited until the waitress, who was wearing some jeans she’d put on as a young child and had grown into, came over. She asked, “What d’ya want?”
“Chili and fries. And a Coke.”
She nodded and wiggled away through the crowd.
There were a couple of Indian men at the bar who were laughing and joking with a tall blond woman who had applied her makeup with a palette knife. And there was me. Everyone else was white and I understood why the reservation had felt comfortable to me, in spite of my appearing as a Buffalo soldier, and it was a weird, kind of embarrassing, revelation.
Two bodies slid into the booth opposite me. Jacoby and Taylor, the state policemen, filled the green seat.
“Looky what the cat drug in, why don’t you?” Jacoby said.
“Just dropping in for a little bite to eat, are you?” Taylor said.
“You wouldn’t have some other reason to be down here near the reservation, would you?” Jacoby.
“Visiting somebody, are you?” Taylor.
“A woman, is it?” Jacoby.
“Hello, Mr. Hawks.” This was a new voice, a woman’s voice, Special Agent Davies’s voice. She looked at the two men. “Sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Hawks and I have an appointment.”
Jacoby and Taylor didn’t speak, just raised their stiff, tightly wound bodies out of their seats and stepped mechanically away. They looked back and muttered something unintelligible, but Davies didn’t seem to care.
“Strange meeting you here,” I said to Davies as she sat down across from me.
“It’s a small place,” she said. She was wearing makeup and wearing it fairly badly. Her eyes were imprisoned in black and her cheeks wore red streaks. “What brings you to town?”
“I heard the chili was good here,” I said.
“Must be great to get you down here in this weather.”
“Things are slow in these parts,” I said.
“I’m from Indiana originally,” Davies said.
“So you understand slow.”
“Oh, yes.”
I nodded. “I hear tell that’s a pretty flat place.”
“Flat enough.”
The waitress came and looked at Davies. “You want any food, honey?”
“The chili,” Davies said. “I hear it’s good.”
“The chili sucks,” the waitress said.
“Why didn’t you say that when I ordered it?” I asked.
“I don’t like your looks.”
I chuckled at first and then, looking at her face, I came to understand. I said, “You mean the fact that I’m black.”
“Possibly.”
She surely didn’t matter enough to make me mad, but I said, as I got up to leave, “Well, Miss almost-GED-nineteen-seventy-eight, I’ll be going now.”
“Fine with me.”
Davies got up with me.
“You don’t have to go, honey,” the waitress said.
“Yes, I do,” said Davies with a kind of laugh. “The view and the stench in here are awful.”
I wasn’t too upset by the waitress and I wasn’t too terribly surprised at Davies’s reaction, although as she stood to leave with me I noticed that she was just a little bit drunk. In fact, I found her allying herself with me a bit disconcerting and I distrusted her.
“Is there another bar we can go to?” she asked, once we were out in the parking lot.
“There’s one a couple of blocks into town,” I said. “The food is only mediocre, however, not average like this place.”
“Sounds good enough to me.”
I didn’t want her company, but I had it now. “I’ll drive,” I said, thinking that even though it was a short drive, she’d been drinking and also I didn’t want her to be in control. “We can come back and pick up your car later.”
We got into my truck and went to the next place, a smaller place, more of a joint than the first. It had a small neon sign out front, some fat cowboys playing pool in the back, and Patsy Cline singing on a weak-speakered jukebox.
“Now, this is more like it,” Davies said.
“Where do you want to sit, Inspector?” I asked.
“Call me Gladys.”
“Where do you want to sit, Inspector Gladys?”
“How about that booth?” She pointed to a booth tucked away in the corner. “And it’s Special Agent.”
I followed her to it and sat down across from her. I pulled the menus from between the napkin dispenser and the wall and handed her one.
“So, what’s mediocre?” she asked.
“Everything.”
The waitress came with glasses of water. “Anything to drink?” she asked.
“Beer,” Davies said. “And bring me a fried-egg sandwich on white bread and a little mustard.”
I closed my menu. “Coffee for me. I’d like a burger, rare, with cheese and no onions.” I watched the white nurse shoes of the waitress as she walked away, then looked to Davies. “An egg sandwich?” I said.
“I like eggs,” she said, leaning back. “So, tell me about the reservation.”
“I don’t know anything to tell.”
“You’re a hydrologist. You ever work with the Plata? You know, on all this water stuff? Tell me about that.”
I shook my head. “I described the geological features of the Plata Mountain drainage, but for an environmental organization. I don’t get involved in political stuff. I’m just a scientist.”
“So, you know these mountains pretty well, don’t you? I mean, you live here.”
I nodded. “There are a lot of people who know them better than I do. I know which way the water drains and runs. That’s about all I know. You want me to tell you about the nature of the sediments or terrace formation?”
The waitress brought my coffee and Davies’s beer.
“You’re probably wondering how I came to be in the FBI,” she said and pulled from her bottle, ignoring the frosted glass mug that came with it.
“Not really,” I said.
“I went to fucking law school, met a cute guy, got knocked up, lost the cute guy, dropped out of fucking law school, lost the baby, got mad, joined the FBI.” She looked away; a crack seemed to be showing in her chitinous exoskeleton.
“The classic American story.” I waited while she took another pull on her beer. “Are you drunk?” I asked.
