The Witch Tree, page 3
“So, what were you doing out there?” she asked. “Since you said it was so important.”
He forgot and pressed his ear, wondering what to tell her, felt a wave of nausea and squeezed his eyes shut.
“I was ‘Out to save the world as we once knew it,’” he said and chuckled, though to himself.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, then added, “And you mean as we know it, don’t you?”
“No, it’s an inside joke,” he told her, “believe me.”
“I don’t think it’s funny.”
He sat back, collecting himself, then turned to her. Driving, she was studying him out of the corner of her eye.
“I think it’s tragic,” she said, “what you’re implying.”
“What part of it?”
“All of it,” she said, and he felt a burning in his throat, and he turned away, the lights of a gas station flashing by.
Passing through ratty, down at its heels Hinkley, she stopped the car at a gas station. He assumed it was to fill up, but she parked a good distance from the pumps, then rushed to the Ladies’. He could just make her out behind the propane tank there, Phillips on the side in loopy blue letters. She pounded the door, then took a flask from her jacket and wasted no time downing what was in it. Then she was back, and all the more animated.
He got the car filled, and they were moving again, Sally mock perky at the wheel, trying too hard.
“I mean, I was fine, taking classes and everything, and I would be now, too,” she said. “But they kept pushing me,” she said.
“Pushing you? Who?”
“Everybody. My boyfriend. My dad. My mother. My brother… everybody thought I needed something different.”
“My professors, they had me in this… honors program? – which was good, but it was too much… stress. And Dwight, my boyfriend, he was all crazy, and what with the weed-out classes, and we were living just west of Augsburg, too…. Do you know it? That area?”
Did he know it? All too well. It was rough, run down, an urban ghetto, dangerous.
“My therapist,” she said, glancing over, “well, the one I had before, anyway, he said I have to face what’s making me have the attacks, and my brother, well, he’s been trying to get me to come out to Seattle, to get me away from… home, or whatever, but… I just keep – falling apart.”
She coughed, or he thought she was coughing, until he realized she crying, and trying not to.
“What?” he said.
“I didn’t want what they wanted for me! Is that so terrible?” she blurted, “only, I ended up back home, I’m mean, really? And, God, it was just… getting worse, my attacks, and they were really going to dope me up, so I….” Sally glanced up through the windshield into the falling snow, then over at him. “I ran! Out into this… fucking storm. Do you think that’s crazy?”
When he didn’t answer, she said, almost sullenly, “You there?” wiping her forearm across her eyes. “I’m sorry, I just…. I want – no, I need – my life to make sense again – somehow.
“Is that so much to ask?”
“No,” he said, because, that was what he’d been asking himself since he’d lost his cabin, he, Bear, and Eli all but homeless just after, and Eli, in a rage, shooting down to the Twin Cities.
“So,” he said, “think you can make it happen?” He wanted to know. Because, there, too, he was doing his best. Do or die.
“I don’t have to tell you that,” she shot back, and she shuddered, then nodded, the matter closed.
5
On a long, straight stretch of road, she shook him awake. The snow was raking the windshield again. “The Cities are coming up,” she said. “It’s after two in the morning.”
He thought to have her drive him to Little Earth, where Eli was living, but he couldn’t – take her into Tonto Town, not at this time of night, even as much as he wanted to get there.
“Drop me off at the junction of I 35 and Lake,” he said.
“And then what?”
“I’ll hitch.”
She turned to him to see if he was joking. When she saw not, her eyes narrowed. “No,” she said. “And who would give you a ride, looking like that? I mean, Jesus, really?
“And, anyway, you’re not yourself yet.”
“And by that you mean what?”
“You’re still… discombobulested.”
“It’s dis-com-bobu- lated. Not lested.” He glanced over and saw she’d been kidding.
Another gas station flashed by, and she glanced at the gas gauge. “So, what year is it?”
“What kind of question is that?”
She grinned. “Do you know it or not? It’s one of those… rescuer person questions, to see if people are all there.”
“It’s 1982. April… something or another.”
“The eighth, morning of. Who’s the President?”
“The president of what?”
“Just say it.”
No, he was still in a fog. And it was snowing like hell outside, which made him want to shrink in his seat.
“See?” Sally said. “You’re still not right.”
“That phony cowboy actor, Ride ‘em Hard Ronny…. He’s the President, elected a couple years ago.”
“Ronald Reagan.”
He slapped his forehead, miming. “Right! Our ‘friend to the Indians,’” he said, his voice nasal, imitating Reagan. “‘You just come on in now, you feisty redskins, and, why, if you’ll just clean up in these-here spiffy showers we got second-hand from some Germans after the war, why….’” Sally cast her eyes at him, disapproving. “My brother, Eli,” he replied, “he’s a comedian?”
“You said that, earlier. And it’s not funny. Okay? And don’t pretend like it is, not with me.
“And are you making that up? About your brother being a comedian?” Sally asked. “It isn’t you?”
“Nope.” He squeezed his eyes together. “I’m a very un-funny guy.” His face still felt like putty. “So, just drop me off at a local roach motel,” he said. “Can you do that?”
“Right,” Sally replied. “I mean, where, the YMCA?”
He didn’t like what she was implying, that he looked down and out, because he wasn’t – or was she just being efficient? Or joking again? – and he reached into his pocket, then slapped a bill on the dashboard.
“Fifty do it?” he said. “Or do you need a hundred or so? Just to fill your Caddy, I mean?”
She frowned at the bill – as if wondering whether she should eat it, from the hungry look on her face – then snatched it up.
6
They parked alongside a Motel 6, and she got out of the car, walked agitatedly up and down the sidewalk in front of the office, swinging her arms at her sides, like damn windmills. Jesus, he thought. He’d known all kinds of rich, pretty girls up at the lodge, and earlier, playing ball, but this one was different. Truly, an exquisitely plumed bird. Now fluttering, and badly.
She darted into the office, then moments later was back with a key and threw the passenger door open.
“Let’s get you out,” she said.
He shook his head. His feet were swollen and ached terribly and his trick knee was all but locked stiff.
“What’s wrong?”
“Got a little body malfunction here, Cap’n,” he said, “something ol’ Officer Scotty canna fix.”
Sally set her eyes on something across the highway, deciding something, then threw her hands up.
“That’s it,” she said. “I’m taking you to a hospital.”
“No,” he said. “You can’t. I mean – I can’t.”
“So, what do you want me to do?”
He slid his legs out and put his feet on the ground. “Just leave me here. Go on. I mean it,” he said.
He tried to lift himself, but couldn’t, he was so exhausted, and she got a hand under his arm and tugged.
“Let go, please?” he said.
A door opened down from them, and a middle-aged man stepped out with a briefcase. Side-parted salt and pepper hair, too-dapper toothbrush moustache, a self- appointed guardian of the law.
“Havin’ a little trouble there?” he asked, his head cocked and set to duck into the office.
“We’re fine,” Sally answered. She got her arm around his waist, lifting him. “Up,” she said.
They crossed the lot like that.
“Go slow,” he told her.
She got the key in the door and opened it. It was dark inside and he stumbled for the switch, got the light on, and she caught the door with her heel and swung it shut behind them.
“No,” he said, “You go on now, right now. I mean it. Go. You go on out to your brother’s in Seattle. You say what you have to at home, to… whoever, and get the hell out.”
“But I can’t,” she shot back, “and, anyway, you’ll fall and hurt yourself….” She put her knuckled fist to her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“What are you sorry for?” God almighty, he thought. She needed help. Or, she needed something.
She led him into the bathroom, got him to sit on the toilet, then ran hot water in the tub and the room filled with a luxurious, hot steam.
“Scrub-a-dub-dub, into the tub,” she said, laughing, and shuddering again, whatever it was getting away from her. Or – getting to her. “I’m trying,” she said, a terror in her voice, “only… it’s happening again.”
“Breathe,” he said, “can you? Just that? You have to breathe, Sally,” and she did that.
She got his jacket off, then his boots, the toes stained blood red and the heels worn down. He’d stuffed newspaper in the holes in the bottoms, and it came out now, with his feet. For a moment she was distracted, reading the headline there. Falklands Remind British.
He was still deathly cold all over, and his toes were red and swollen hard and in places putty-colored.
“Jesus Christ,” she said, pointing to his feet. “Up,” she said.
He towered over her. There was a line of vulnerable white skin where she parted her hair. She pointed to the tub. He still had his pants on.
It was a strangely intimate moment, more naked than naked, each caring for the other.
“Get in,” she told him, and he did.
He bolted awake with the bed spread bunched around him, chemical smelling and chenille. He had to get moving, over to Little Earth. He lay on his back in the dark. His ears were hot and swollen and itched; his feet throbbed something awful, as if there were a thousand pins in them.
What had all that been about? Sally, that was her name. Or was it? And where was she? Not in the double bed to his left, though the rumpled imprint of her body was there, like an afterimage.
The thought of her outside in the car and on the run, wound up like she was, gave him pause.
Poor damn kid. And pretty? But, god, was she a mess. She needed help, and then some.
His back against the headboard, he took in the room. Dirty shag carpet, white cinderblock walls, dark imitation mahogany furniture, a mirror over the dresser. On the road, playing ball, he’d seen hundreds like it, in all the big cities, and here yet another nowhere place. He reached into the night stand beside the bed. Gideons, and a phone book. The name of the motel was printed across the cover – Harkness I 35 Motel 6. Lakeville.
He let his head drop back. Then, suddenly panicked, he sat up, dizzy, and turned on the light. Went into the bathroom. His pants were draped like a scarecrow’s over the heater, which had dried them, and he reached into the rear pocket, nothing there, and he ducked back into the bedroom, was relieved to see his wallet on the stand. There was a paper bag, too. He reached into it. Powdered sugar donuts, a quart of milk, and two Snickers bars.
He tore into a donut, ravenous, wondering if he should catch a cab into Minneapolis; it was just thirty miles.
Wasn’t finished chewing when he shoved in another, the doughnuts soft and sweet. Sitting in the dark, he reached for his wallet, chewing and swallowing. Squeezed it in his palm.
He forced the wallet open with his thumb, then bent over it. Receipts, notes, driver’s license, business cards.
It was all there, all of it but his money – over a hundred fifty dollars, of which three twenties remained. She’s written a note, and he held it under the lamp.
So very sorry. Left enough for you to eat. So, do, okay? Can’t Explain. Will pay you back. I promise, promise, promise. Sally.
Laughing, he clapped his wallet shut and set it on the nightstand alongside Gideons, thought, that would be another cold day in hell.
And, anyway, she’d saved his life and, in the old thinking, their lives were now forever nijode, twinned; his otchichag, his very soul, would be in peril if he didn’t offer her his aid.
With no place to go, she’d be in her car, somewhere near where she’d been living before.
And while he took care of Eli’s mess, he’d have to find her – help her out of hers, no matter the cost.
7
Fresh out of the cab and only a dollar in his pocket, he headed up Lake Street in a sea of morning foot traffic, his collar up around his neck and trying to get his bearings in Uptown.
He stopped, now, to take in the maw of the city, and the clouds, overhead, gray and featureless as a lid on a pot.
To the east, over the Mississippi, was L’ Oeill de Chochran, or St. Paul. Pig’s Eye, as he’d known it for ages. Named so after a distiller who’d bootlegged to Indians, Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant.
It was a joke among shinobs, granted the difficulty they encountered in the Cities, Goin’ to visit ol’ Pierre.
And since there was no elevated here, and he didn’t know the bus routes and had no money, he’d have to walk the entire distance – five, ten miles? – to Little Earth, where Eli’d been living, in the heart of it.
So he headed up Lake Street, bumping shoulders with businessmen in smart suits, a kid in a Mohawk, and women shopping, slinging bags, one of which he caught with his knee, and the woman glaring over her shoulder, a “Who are you to touch me?!” in it, and his earlier life here rose up in him, even now, all these years later all but overwhelming, threatening to bring him down, and he broke into a near run, as if he could distance himself from it.
Running, and running, and no help for it.
In that time after St. Mary’s, before he’d left to play ball, he’d come down to the cities to work for Eli’s father, Joe, selling vacuum cleaners. Electrolux. Gotcha here a real helper, Joe’s pitch had gone. You comin’ to the corner youkin pull this here cord and it’ll snap inside again and she makes a real good vacuum can’t get no better watch. Joe would toss down a handful of coins and the cleaner would suck them up, clanking, while he, bashful, and just turned seventeen, stood behind Joe, dying of embarrassment, in a tie and jacket, well over six feet, and the sleeves of his jacket inches above his wrists, a clown suit, one his father, Od, had sent him. Ya, this here little pony’ll snuff up them oats just like that, Joe’d say. And if there were a boy or a girl, Joe would wink, aim the hose in their direction, teasing. Oops, don’t wanna suck the little ones up into the machine now. Real bargain. What cha say now you don’t get no better deal downtown and whatsay, huh? If his pitch were going badly, Joe’d get out his wallet and show them snapshots of the family, of Buck’s mother, Martha, even though she’d long before left, and of Bear and Eli, his half-brothers. At some point, Joe would turn to Buck. This here boy, Buck, he’d say, he’s goina be a pro ball player. Make us all real proud. Pride of Red Lake. Hekin run even fastern that Jim Thorpe could, it’s a real record. Done it in high school, fastest time ever. Lookit those hands. Workin’ for a new mitt. Needs a mitt ‘n’ shoes to make his dreams come true. Ah, yah. What cha say? Can’t get no better machine, even looks modern and as we’d say, ‘Oshkayii,’ and he’d cringed, time and again, waiting to hear it – to see the scowl of disapproval, and he’d felt, then, all over again, a hot, soul-obliterating nakedness–
At St. Mary’s, Mother Kate had nearly beat him to death for speaking the old language, and too many times, all while he sang miga diwin gumowin, war songs – until Seraphim ran screaming into the middle of it.
Out canvassing, though, the kinder people asked, “What’s it mean, ‘Oh-sshh-kay-eee,’ is that it?”
With an avuncular punch to his shoulder, Joe’d say, “Buck?” Only he’d never answered.
“Newfangled,” Joe would reply, “that’s what it means, and this here lil’ ‘Lectrolux is all that.”
Sometimes, between houses, Joe stopped as if dumbstruck to find himself in the Cities.
“We’ll eat after we get two more blocks in, Ogwiss,” son, he’d say then, and not a touch of homespun in it. Or shame, at having fallen to such circumstances, and neither of them home here, in this cold, inhospitable place.
As he’d heard it, Od, his father, and Joe had gotten involved in a venture to manufacture leather goods, and when it “failed,” they’d been accused of stealing a decades’ worth of the Red Lake Band’s development funds, over a million dollars, and not so much as a nail to show for it.
Od, claiming responsibility, had disappeared, and Joe’d made a life as a salesman in Tonto Town.
Joe, who – though he rarely sold anything – had always seemed to have cash on hand for the, oftentimes desperate, shinobs who met them along their route, for a car, a short term loan, a rent payment, a doctor.
On Sunday, the third day of Buck’s visits, like clockwork Joe would solemnly press a sheaf of bills into his hands, and he would board the Greyhound for Red Lake again.
“Take care,” Joe’d tell him, and back up north he’d do exactly that, more father to his half brothers Bear and Eli than Joe.
Broken bones, dog bites, night terrors; bullies, vicious racists, and condescending sportsmen mouthing racial slurs. Bear, ten years Buck’s junior, had grown a thick skin and laughed through it all, joked with his oppressors. Dished back what came at him and then some, was a joy. Eli, younger by two years, had mimicked Bear, only Eli being small, and wiry, not at all like Bear, couldn’t carry it off. He’d befriended animals, and for a time wouldn’t eat anything that had eyes – which left him all the more scrawny. The farm kids at the off-reserve school, big, lunking, clodhoppers, sent Eli home with bloody noses and black eyes. And, worst of all, he drove his teachers, the nuns and lay staff both, crazy with questions.
