Wide awake, Checkers climbed out the window and snuck past the Tribal Cops asleep in their cruisers. She avoided the roads and cut across fields. There was no moon on that night, and the walk was treacherous. She stepped in gopher holes, tripped over abandoned barbed wire, heard the laughter of animals. Checkers wasn’t afraid of the dark. She was afraid of what waited in the dark. She heard rustling in the brush, the scratch-scratch of unseen animals as they climbed pine trees.
But she made her way through to the Catholic Church. She saw its lights in the distance, and it grew larger and brighter as she approached. Checkers wasn’t sure how long the walk had taken. But the church was still lit up, bright as God. She walked boldly through the front door and stepped inside.
Father Arnold kneeled at the front of the church. His whole body rocked and shook. From Checkers’s viewpoint, she couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying.
“Father?” Checkers whispered, but he didn’t respond.
“Father?” Checkers said louder, and Arnold turned around. He had been crying, was still crying. He wiped his face with a sleeve of his cassock. He stood.
“Father?” Checkers asked. “Are you okay?”
She slowly walked toward him. She had dreamed of this moment. Even as Phil Sheridan floated on the periphery, Checkers had dreamed of taking Father Arnold in her arms. She dreamed of the smell of his hair, washed with cheap shampoo, all that a priest could afford. She dreamed of the kiss they shared just before Coyote Springs left for Big Mom’s house, for Manhattan.
Checkers wasn’t dreaming as she walked across the church, her muddy feet leaving tracks on the wood floor. She trailed her right hand over the pews, felt the splintered wood. Father Arnold had once told her those pews were over fifty years old. But Checkers didn’t really care about the age of that wood. She walked up to Father Arnold and stood just inches away.
“Checkers,” Father Arnold whispered.
“Father.”
Checkers closed her eyes and expected the next kiss.
“Checkers,” Father Arnold said, “this is not going to happen. It can’t. I’m sorry.”
Checkers looked up at him.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
Father Arnold led Checkers to a pew and sat beside her.
“I’m leaving the reservation,” he said. “I’ve lost my direction here.”
Father Arnold had served the Spokane Indian Reservation for five years and ministered with self-conscious kindness. He effusively praised even the smallest signs of an Indian’s faith. He had cried at his first service when Bessie, the oldest Spokane Indian Catholic, presented him with a dreamcatcher. Other priests would have dismissed the dreamcatcher as Indian mysticism or mythological arts and crafts, but Father Arnold was genuinely thrilled by its intricate system of threads and beads. He had laughed out loud when he noticed the dreamcatcher was actually decorated with rosary beads.
“Hang this over your bed,” Bessie had said, “and it will catch those Protestant nightmares before they can sneak into your sleep.”
“But what about Catholic nightmares?” Father Arnold had asked.
“Protestants are a good Catholic’s worst nightmare.”
Father Arnold had rushed home and hung it over his bed. Later that night, he stared up at the dreamcatcher over his head. He willed himself to think of the worst possible things. Murders, rapes, loss of faith. Father Arnold imagined that he was nailed to the cross. He heard the dull thud of hammer on nail.
“Come on, nightmares,” Arnold had whispered. “You can’t touch me now.”
“Where are you going?” Checkers asked Father Arnold. “Where are they sending you?”
“They aren’t sending me anywhere,” Arnold said. “I’m leaving the church. I’m letting it all go.”
Checkers leaned back in the pew. She felt some winged thing bump against the interior of her ribcage. She felt the slight brush of wingtips as it struggled between her ribs and left her body. She had no name for it. Checkers heard that winged thing flutter against the stained-glass windows. Then it flew so close that she felt a slight breeze. She closed her eyes, and the winged thing was gone.
“But I love you,” Checkers said.
“I love you, too,” Father Arnold said. “But not like that. It can’t work that way.
“But you kissed me.”
“I know I kissed you. It was wrong.”
“You can’t do this. You can’t. Not now,” Checkers said. She didn’t know how much she had left. Coyote Springs had failed, had not even bothered to bring their instruments home from Manhattan. Checkers could see the guitars and keyboards strewn around the studio. Victor’s guitar was smashed into pieces, but everything else was just as useless.
“Would you like some headphones?” the attendant had asked Checkers during the flight home from Manhattan. Checkers just shook her head. The rest of Coyote Springs refused the headphones, too.
Checkers sat next to the window, Chess in the middle, and Thomas in the aisle seat. Junior and Victor sat directly across the aisle, one on either side of an empty seat. It was the only empty seat on the plane.
Coyote Springs didn’t have much to say on the way home. They all drank their complimentary Pepsis and ate their roasted peanuts. Junior and Victor didn’t order any booze. They didn’t have the money. They might not have drank anyway, even if given the chance. After they returned home, both just sipped at tall glasses of ice water.
“Thomas and I had a talk,” Chess whispered to Checkers somewhere over Iowa. “We’re going to move back to Arlee. We want you to come with us.”
“Why Arlee?” Checkers asked.
“What do you mean? Those are our people. We don’t have anywhere else to go anyway.”
“We can go anywhere. We can stay on the Spokane Reservation.”
“Jeez, Checkers. Will you get your head out of your ass? They don’t want us there anymore.”
“How do you know that?” Checkers asked. “Besides, it’s only that White Hawk causing all the trouble. The people at the church still like me.”
“They only liked you because you quit the band,” Chess said. “And all you’re worried about is Father Arnold anyway.”
The plane bounced through rough air, but Coyote Springs barely noticed. Junior looked out his window and wondered how he would feel if the plane lost power and began the long dive to the ground. The oxygen masks would drop from the ceiling while the flight attendants rushed from row to row, speaking in calm and practiced tones.
Remove your eyewear. Remove all jewelry. Make sure the aisles are clear. Buckle yourself in tightly. We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it. Don’t panic. Panic is your enemy. Don’t feel guilty that you left college in the middle of an English class. During a boring discussion about the proper way to write an essay. Remember that you had no idea she was going to get an abortion. It’s not your fault. You didn’t want the baby either. Not really. Not until she didn’t want you anymore. Not until she didn’t want some half-breed baby. Not until you thought about how much her parents hated you. How they deserved a half-breed grandchild. How would they explain it to their friends? Please, breathe slowly. Hold on to the hand of the person next to you at impact. Don’t let them go. Don’t let them go even when the flames roll through the cabin and melt you into your seat. She had no other choice. She had no other choice. Our pilot has thousands of hours of flying experience. The whole crew has been trained to deal with these emergencies. No matter what happens, the coroners will be able to identify you from your dental records. Indian Health Service keeps excellent records. And if you do survive the impact, survive the flames and the toxic smoke, then you will hear music. A cedar flute perhaps. Follow that music. Even though you don’t deserve it. Follow that thin music.
Junior closed his eyes and listened for the music. He didn’t hear anything. He looked over at Victor, who was fighting back tears. Chess, Checkers, and Thomas could not have seen Victor from where they sat. No
body could have known exactly why he was in mourning. The rest of Coyote Springs might have assumed it was because he had lost his chance to be a rock star. But he mourned for the loss of that guitar. Junior watched his best friend mourn, but he wanted to reach across the seat, touch Victor’s arms, and point out the exits.
“You can’t leave,” Checkers said to Father Arnold. “You can’t leave me, us, alone.”
“The Bishop will send another priest,” Father Arnold said. “They won’t have any other option. They can’t leave the community alone. I’m sure the new priest will be here soon. They can arrange for a few visitors to conduct the services until he arrives.”
“That’s not what I mean. You know that’s not what I mean.”
Father Arnold searched his soul for the right words, the right prayer. He had always had them before. God, he had been sure of the answers. Self-deprecating and modest, he had still believed he was a great priest. He knew he was a great priest, in a quietly arrogant way. On some spiritual scoreboard in his head, he had kept count of the people he was saving.
Checkers had taken all that away. No. That wasn’t fair to Checkers. She didn’t love him any more than other parishioners had. Father Arnold had resisted advances before. It happened to priests often enough to warrant a few good-natured jokes in the seminary. But Checkers had truly shaken Father Arnold and his vows. He dreamed about her every night. In those dreams, she led him into a tipi, lay down with him on a robe, and touched him. Frightened and aroused, Father Arnold woke and prayed that his dreamcatcher would work. He prayed that his dreams of Checkers would be trapped in the dreamcatcher’s web.
“I dream about you,” Father Arnold said to Checkers.
“I dream about you, too.”
“No,” Arnold said. “I don’t want to dream about you. I’m a man of God. I belong to God.”
Checkers reached for Father Arnold, but he stood and stepped away. He had always loved how his flock kept a respectable distance away, coming closer only with his permission.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you need to leave. I need to leave.”
Father Arnold reached out to Checkers, reconsidered, and then quickly walked out of the church. Checkers didn’t follow him. She leaned back in the pew and stared at the crucifix nailed to the wall. Jesus nailed to the cross that’s nailed to the wall. She felt a sharp ache deep in her chest. She curled her knees up next to her breasts, wrapped her arms around her legs, and slowly rocked back and forth, back and forth.
On the day before Checkers made her escape to the Catholic Church, Victor Joseph sat alone on the couch. The rest of Coyote Springs was out on the front lawn, talking to the Tribal Cops. Victor had no use for Tribal Cops, even if they were supposedly protecting him. Victor stared at the space in the room where the television used to sit. Upon their arrival home, Coyote Springs had thrown out the television, which didn’t work anyway, three radios, and a pair of squeaky cowboy boots. They didn’t want to hear any kind of music. Victor stared at that space until he fell asleep.
In his dream, Victor sat alone in the house and heard a soft noise in the distance. At first, he thought it was the conversation outside, but the noise took shape and became a C chord, then a D, F, and G. He clapped his hands to his ears, but the music would not stop. He stood and looked out the window at his bandmates and the cops, but they just continued, oblivious to the music. He searched the house for the source. The two bedrooms were empty, as were the bathroom and kitchen. The music grew louder as Victor descended the stairs. In the unfinished basement, the blankets that served as walls swayed with the force of the chords.
Victor searched under the stairs, in the bedrooms, and still couldn’t find the source. He opened up the downstairs bathroom door and was knocked back by a vicious open chord. The guitar was leaning against the wall.
I think you left something behind in New York, said the guitar. Victor stepped inside the bathroom, shut the door behind him, and reached for it.
Take it easy there, the guitar said. You can have me back. You can take me and you can be anybody you want to be. You can have anything you want to have. But you have to trade me for it.
Trade what? Victor asked.
You have to give up what you love the most, said the guitar. What do you love the most? Who do you love the most?
Outside, while Victor dreamt, Junior Polatkin thought he heard his name called out. He looked at the Tribal Cops, who just continued to flirt with Chess and Checkers. The Warm Water sisters ignored the Tribal Cops and talked to each other. Thomas sat on an old tire swing. Junior heard his name again and recognized Victor’s voice. He looked toward the house, but he was the only one who heard it. Junior heard Victor whisper his name.
On the night before Victor Joseph dreamed about the guitar, Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Chess Warm Water lay awake in bed. Both assumed Checkers was fast asleep on the floor, but she listened to their whispered conversation.
“Thomas,” Chess said, “what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to go back to Arlee.”
Thomas didn’t say anything. He stared up at the stained ceiling. Water stains. He remembered the rain that had pounded his roof, seeped through the insulation, pooled in the crawlspace, and then dripped down onto the bed.
“I want to go back to Arlee,” Chess said again. “You said we could go back to Arlee.”
Thomas had agreed to go back to Arlee as Coyote Springs waited in Kennedy Airport in New York. He had never felt farther away, never felt more away than at that moment. He didn’t want to get on the plane for the flight home to Wellpinit. He wanted to get on a different plane and fly to someplace different, somewhere he had never even heard of. Some strange place with a strange name. He wanted to grab a map of the world, close his eyes, and spit. He would live wherever his spit landed on the map. Still, he knew he would probably spit on his own reservation, just a green-colored spot on the map.
“I’ll go wherever you want to go,” Thomas had said but still knew that every part of him was Spokane Indian.
“Good,” Chess had said, but she also saw the doubt in Thomas’s eyes. She knew what it felt like to leave her own reservation. She had felt something stretch inside her as that blue van pulled off the Flathead Reservation all those weeks ago. She had looked back and felt a sharp pain, like the tearing of tendon and ligament from bone. She had left her reservation because of that goddamn guitar, that sudden fire it had lit inside her. But that fire had consumed almost everything, and despite her years of firefighting experience, she had not been able to stop it. She had not dug fire lines, had not provided herself with a quick escape route. She loved the music, she loved Thomas, she loved the fire. But Thomas was all that she had left, and the Spokane Indian Reservation was threatening to keep him.
“Thomas,” she had said just before their flight number was called.
“What?” he asked.
She had taken his hand in hers, studied the way their fingers fit together, and almost wanted to stay there in the airport forever. She had almost wanted to stay suspended between here and there, between location and destination. She squeezed Thomas’s hand and waited.
“There’s nothing left here for us,” Chess said to Thomas in bed. “There’s nothing left here for you.”
“I know,” Thomas said. “But they’re my people. They’re my Tribe.”
“Of course. But the Flatheads are my people. And they ain’t threatening to kill us.”
“Not everybody wants to kill us. Nobody wants to kill us. They’re just talking. We just let them down.”
“Don’t make excuses for them. You don’t need to make excuses for them.”
Checkers rolled over on the floor. She knew her movement would make Thomas and Chess stop talking. She didn’t want to go back to the Flathead Reservation, and she didn’t want Chess to convince Thomas to move. Even if Chess and Thomas left, Checkers knew she would remain behind.
Indians were always switching reservations anyway. For love, for money, to escape jail time. Checkers was still thinking of Father Arnold.
“Thomas,” Chess said after a long silence. “Are you still awake?”
“Yeah.”
“We don’t have to go to Arlee. I mean, I really want to go home. But mostly, I just want to leave here. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Where would we go?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere but here. Maybe we should go west. All the white people did and look what they got.”
“What’s west of here?”
“Everything’s west of here, Thomas. Everything. We could move to Spokane. Is that west enough?”
Spokane, a mostly white city, sat on the banks of the Spokane River. Spokane the city was named after the Tribe that had been forcibly removed from the river. Spokane was only sixty miles from the reservation, but Thomas figured it was no closer than the moon.
There was nobody waiting for Coyote Springs in the Spokane International Airport when they deboarded the plane. They had crossed three time zones and still had no idea how they worked.
“It’s like fucking time travel,” Victor said.
Coyote Springs had waited at the baggage carousel until all the passengers had picked up their luggage. All except Victor. All the other passengers on the plane had been greeted by family and friends who took the luggage from their hands. All the other passengers had already left the airport. Coyote Springs waited for Victor’s bag.
“Shit,” Victor said. “What happened?”
Coyote Springs was just about to abandon the bag when a guitar case slid down onto the carousel. The rest of Coyote Springs took a quick step back, but Victor reached for it and grabbed the handle. He pulled the guitar case off the carousel and turned back toward the rest of the band.
“It’s my guitar,” Victor said. “It’s my guitar, goddamn it. We can start over. We can get the band going again. We don’t need those fucking guys in New York City. We can do it ourselves.”