Pigs in Heaven

  1. Cyrus Stonecipher. "The pritfalls of gambling, a story too often told"

  2. Betty Louise Squirrel. "Bingo, everybody wins!"

  Annawake Fourkiller and Andy Rainbelt sit at the long speakers' table down in front with their backs to the chalkboard, apparently unaware of the gambling agenda. Andy Rainbelt seems festive in a blue calico shirt with satin ribbon trim at the yoke, similar to the one Annawake wore the day she and Taylor met. Taylor can remember exactly how she looked. Today she's a different person, in black-rimmed glasses and a haircut that seems worrisome to her. She keeps pushing it out of her way.

  Turtle, Taylor, and Alice are sitting together in the red movietheater chairs that fill the small auditorium. Turtle swings her legs so the toes of her sneakers drum out a steady tha-bump against the empty seat in front of her. The rows are set in a V-shape facing the speakers' table, with an aisle down the center. Those in attendance have assumed a wedding interpretation, in which the center aisle divides the two families; the seats on the other side are filling up briskly. Cash is over there and so is Letty, in a red dress with an imposing row of gold buttons down the front; countless other friends and relations have trailed in with children and greetings and messages for their neighbors. Boma Mellowbug is wearing a man's pinstriped suit and a baseball cap, looking very sporting. She holds the hand of an old, extremely thin man whose hair hangs between his shoulder blades in a white plait as thin and prickly as binder's twine. The heavyset woman who waited on Alice and Annawake in the coffee shop hustles in, leaning into Letty's row in a businesslike way to inform Letty that the half-size dress patterns are in at Woolworth's in Tahlequah.

  "What is half-size, Aunt Earlene?" asks a young woman who's nursing a baby. "I always wondered that."

  Earlene turns her back and speaks over her shoulder, reaching her hands around to her waist and the back of her neck to demonstrate. "It's when you've got less inches from here to here than you have in the inseam and the bust measurements."

  "It's for when you're shorter than you are wide," says Roscoe.

  "You hush," Letty tells him. "I don't know why Sugar feeds you."

  Earlene plumps herself down next to the nursing mother. The baby is making a good deal of noise at his task, sounding like the squeaky wheel determined to get all the grease.

  Sugar comes in late, long after Roscoe has taken the one vacant seat next to his sister-in-law Letty, and she seems uncertain where to go. She takes Alice's side at last, but a seat on the aisle, as close as possible to the Stillwaters.

  The talking falls to a hush when a small woman in heels and a white silk blouse clicks in and takes her place at the front table next to Andy Rainbelt. She has a good deal of hair, which she shakes when she sits down, as if it might have gathered dust somewhere along the road to this point. Annawake puts on her glasses, squares the pile of papers in front of her, and stands up. She looks out at the small assembled crowd and smiles oddly. "Have you all decided this is Stillwater versus Greer?"

  The auditorium owns up to this by its silence.

  She leans forward on the palms of her hands, peering out over her glasses, looking just like a lawyer in blue jeans. "Well, it isn't. This is not a court battle, it's just a hearing. I'm Annawake Fourkiller, you all know me here. I was hired by the tribe to oversee its interests in this case. This is Andy Rainbelt, who has jurisdiction as the appointed representative of Child Welfare Services. And this is his boss, Leona Swimmer, here to make sure we all do our jobs."

  Leona Swimmer nods very slightly, apparently wishing to acknowledge nothing more than that she is, in fact, here.

  Annawake goes on. "Mr. Rainbelt and I have conferred, and we're prepared to make a recommendation about the child known as Turtle Greer, also known as Laccy Stillwater."

  Turtle stops swinging her legs. Taylor squeezes her hand so hard that for once Turtle knows herself what it's like to be bitten by those turtles that don't let go.

  Annawake looks down at Andy. "Did you want to say anything?"

  "No, you go ahead," he says. Leona Swimmer is craning her neck to read the blackboard behind her. BINGO, everybody wins! Taylor can just imagine this Betty Louise Squirrel. Some charmed, perky type whose tires never go flat and whose kids never get chicken pox. Taylor pictures her as an actual squirrel, in an apron.

  Annawake speaks in the level sort of voice that takes practice to achieve. "There are two principal legal considerations here. First of all, the adoption of the child by Taylor Greer was improperly conducted. There was no malice on her part, but even so it was illegal. I've filed a motion in state court to invalidate the adoption."

  The nursing baby lets out a small strangled cry. His mother moves him to her shoulder, patting and bouncing him there to get the air bubbles to rise according to the laws that govern babies.

  "Secondly," Annawake says, "we've determined that the child is Cash Stillwater's granddaughter, Lacey Stillwater. She recognizes him, and bears a strong family resemblance."

  "Isn't that so," moans Letty in a low, breathless tone as if receiving the spirit. Cash is perfectly still. He can't feel his hands, and wonders if he's having a quiet, unnoticeable kind of coronary.

  "Given those facts," Annawake says, "we have to consider Cash Stillwater to be the child's legal guardian. If this were contested, a court would undoubtedly find in favor of Mr. Stillwater. The Indian Child Welfare Act clearly states that our children should stay within our tribe, and whenever possible, with their own relatives. In this instance the natural mother is dead and the father is unknown, so the obvious choice would be to assign guardianship to the grandfather."

  Cash still hasn't moved. Taylor has stopped breathing.

  "There's a complication in this case." Annawake picks up a ballpoint pen and clicks the point in and out, in and out. "The child has formed a strong attachment to Taylor Greer, the only mother she's known for the past three years. Mr. Rainbelt evaluated the adoptive setting, and after consulting with a psychiatrist, he feels it would be devastating to break this extreme attachment. He recommends counseling for the child, who suffered a period of abuse and neglect before she was abandoned and subsequently adopted. Counseling will be undertaken at the expense of the Nation. That's one of our duties to this child. Mr. Rainbelt suggests it would be valuable to the healing process, too, for her to spend time with her grandfather and other relatives."

  Annawake holds the pen at arm's length and suddenly stares at it as if she had no idea of its purpose or origin.

  "So," she says finally. "You can see."

  No one in the audience makes any indication that she or he can see.

  "You can see we have conflicting considerations here. Keeping the child in her own culture, and not disrupting her attachment to a non-Cherokee mother. We want to reinstate this child--who should be called Turtle, since she's grown to be a fine little person under her adopted mother's care, and that's the name she connects with her conscious memory of herself--we have to reinstate her as the granddaughter and legal ward of Cash Stillwater. We recommend her legal name be recorded as Turtle Stillwater. So, we've figured out who she is. We've come that far."

  Someone in the audience exhales. The baby emits a tiny belch.

  Annawake takes off her glasses and looks at the ceiling as if in prayer. There is nothing up there but soundproof tile. No evidence of the Above Ones or the six bad boys who got turned into pigs, for whatever reason. The faces in front of her are wide open, waiting. She remembers wanting to be her Uncle Ledger, as a child, during the sermons. This is how it would be.

  "I think we're looking at one of those rare chances life gives us to try and be the very best that we are," Annawake says. "The outside press, when they look at this case, will be asking only one thing: what is in the best interest of the child? But we're Cherokee and we look at things differently. We consider that the child is part of something larger, a tribe. Like a hand that belongs to the body. Before we cut it off, we have to ask how the body will take care of itself without t
hat hand.

  "The Indian Child Welfare Act was designed principally to protect the tribe from losing its members. Our children are our future. But we want them to grow up under the influence of kindness and generosity. Sometimes we have to put the needs of an individual in second place, behind the needs of the community. But we should never put them out of our mind entirely. What we have to do is satisfy the requirements of the tribe, without separating Turtle completely from the mother and grandmother she's come to love and trust."

  Relatives and friends of Turtle Stillwater maintain a perfect silence.

  Annawake puts down her glasses and pushes her hair behind her ears. "I'm going to go out on a limb here. Andy and I just cooked up an idea about fifteen minutes ago, right before this meeting. There's a precedent in these adoption cases for assigning joint custody. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's a mess. But we're going to go ahead and give Cash Stillwater legal guardianship of Turtle Stillwater, with the recommendation that Taylor Greer has shared custody. We're willing to work with both families on an agreeable custody arrangement. Last year, in the case of a Navajo child adopted by a family in Utah, the tribe allowed the child to spend the school year with her adoptive family and summers with her grandparents on the reservation." Annawake looks from Cash to Taylor; their faces look peculiarly identical. She bends down to confer quietly with Andy.

  Andy Rainbelt doesn't stand, but nods, and Annawake speaks again. "Andy plans to continue on as Turtle's personal Indian social worker, and do follow-up evals to see how this custody deal is affecting her. He wants to stress that Turtle won't be separated from her adoptive family until she's ready to do that. But we're going to require the guardians to come up with a plan fairly soon that places Turtle here on the Nation at least three months out of the year."

  Alice Greer blows her nose. Letty pulls out a lace handkerchief and blows hers also, with substantially more showmanship.

  "Obviously," Annawake says, "with joint custody, everything depends on how well the two custodial parties are willing to cooperate. And whether or not the cooperation extends indefinitely into the future. I would hate to see this case ever go to court." She looks down at the papers in front of her. "I think that's about all I have."

  After a moment of shell-shocked quiet, Boma Mellowbug lifts her voice into a long, rising whoop, the signal for ending the sermon and starting the dance.

  "Thanks, Boma." Annawake smiles and sits down.

  No one moves. Taylor takes her first breath of the too-thin air of the rest of her life--a life of sharing Turtle with strangers.

  "This is your chance, people," Andy says. "You're allowed to speak up if you have suggestions or questions or just want to promote the general welfare. That's why we open these things up to the whole family."

  Cash slowly finds his feet, facing front. "I have a suggestion. I suggest that if me and Alice Greer was to get married then the little girl could still be seeing her grandma when she comes for the summers."

  Alice's face drops open on all its hinges. So does Letty Hornbuckle's.

  "Now wait a minute, Cash," Letty says, standing up, gripping the seat in front of her like a church pew. "You haven't knowed her but three weeks."

  Cash turns on his sister like a bull would seeing that red dress. "Letty, now you look here. You're the one started this whole business with her and me in the first place. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

  "No, now goodness me. I helped," Sugar says, pulling herself up as high as her humped back will allow for. "Letty, you're not being fair to Alice. She's my cousin. If they love each other, we ought to go on and let these kids get married." She turns and speaks to Alice. "I helped set it up, too. I made up some of that stuff I said about Cash itching to get to know you."

  Annawake is smirking. "I hate to bring this up, Letty, but I gave you the idea of getting them together. Remember that day I brought back your pie plate? I just hit on it when I was talking to Alice downtown in the coffee shop one day, and spilled the sugar."

  "Honey, don't you worry about that sugar," Earlene says. "That wasn't nothing. Floyd Tailbob throwed a whole fresh cup of coffee on Killie Deal one time in there, on a Easter Sunday. Don't even ask me how he done it."

  Alice is standing with her mouth open, waiting. When Earlene has finished with Floyd Tailbob and Killie Deal, she asks, "Did anybody ask me if I wanted to marry Cash?"

  All bosoms and shirt fronts turn to face Alice.

  "Do I get a say-so here? Because I already made up my mind a long time ago, I don't want another husband that's glued to his everloving TV set. I have my own principles to think about." Alice sits down.

  Annawake looks at Taylor. Andy Rainbelt is smiling broadly, exposing a wonderful gap between his front teeth. Taylor can hear him saying, All families are weird. She couldn't agree more. She's ready to grab Turtle and run for it, except she knows where that road ends.

  "I just have one thing to say," Sugar announces. "If they do get married--I'm just saying if--then I think we ought to have the pig fry at my house. Because Letty's in the middle of getting her a new roof on, and that and a pig fry all at once would be too much to contend with if you ask me."

  "Well, Sugar, it's Cash putting the roof on!" Letty cries. "Don't you think he's going to finish up a shingle job in time for his own wedding?"

  The man with the white ponytail tells Earlene, "That was Flester that spilt his coffee on Killie Deal. I read about that in the paper."

  "No, you did not. You're thinking of when he showed up with coffee all down his shirt sleeve when he was running for Tribal Council."

  Leona Swimmer speaks up for the first time. "Now, why would either one of those things be in the paper? Could somebody tell me?"

  Everyone turns to examine Leona. She looks very elegant and commanding, like a schoolteacher.

  "Tribal politics, Leona," Roscoe tells her with polite impatience. "You know that as well as I do."

  "Now, hear ye!" shouts Cash. "If this meeting is over with, which I'd say it pretty much is, I'm inviting Alice and everybody else here in this room to come over to my place right this minute and witness something I'm about to do."

  He turns and walks out of the room. There is a moment of stupefied silence, then a neighborly stampede.

  Taylor understands she has lost something she won't get back. Cash Stillwater is Turtle's legal guardian. No matter what.

  Taylor can still remember the day when she first understood she'd received the absolute power of motherhood--that force that makes everyone else step back and agree that she knows what's best for Turtle. It scared her to death. But giving it up now makes her feel infinitely small and alone. She can't even count her losses yet; her heart is an empty canyon, so she puts her effort into driving.

  Somehow she has ended up as caboose in the long line of cars following Cash's penny-colored pickup truck. She and Turtle seem to have been forgotten for the moment. It dawns on her that she could pull out of line now and head west, and not a soul would notice. But they're way past that point now. From now until the end of time she is connected to this family that's parading down Main Street, Heaven. One day soon she will lie in bed with Jax and tell him every detail of this day. The Renaissance Cowboys have got nothing on the Stillwaters, for entertainment value.

  "Wait till we tell Jax we want him as your official daddy," she says to Turtle. "What do you think he'll do?"

  "Maybe put his pants on his head and sing 'Happy Birthday' to himself."

  "Yeah, maybe."

  "Does that mean you're still my mom?"

  "I am. But I have to share you with your grandpa now. He's going to have a big say in how you're raised."

  "I know. So I can be a Cherokee when I grow up. Andy Rainbow told me."

  "You like Andy?"

  Turtle nods. "Those people in there? Were they Pop-pop's family?"

  "Yep. Your family, to be exact."

  "They're crazy."

  "I know," Taylor says. "But they'll probably grow on yo
u."

  The one traffic light in town turns red on her, just after all the others have passed under. Taylor turns on her headlights so people will think it's a funeral, and floors it right on through the red. Nobody much was coming, anyway. If she gets separated from the others now, she'll never know how her life is going to come out.

  Cash walks out the back door of his cabin carrying his television set, and with a vigorous wordlessness, sets it on a stump. It sits there not quite level, its short black cord hanging down in a defeated manner. While Cash stomps back inside, the witnesses arrange themselves in a semicircle facing the blank green eye. Nothing in this world, Alice notes, will get people organized and quiet faster than a TV set, even when there is nothing to plug it into but a tree stump.

  Turtle takes a hop or two toward the TV, but the girl with the baby on her shoulder gently pulls her back. Taylor reaches forward and takes Turtle's hand.

  Cash appears again, carrying his rifle. "You all move back," he says, and they waste no time.

  "He's done lost his mind," Alice says calmly to Taylor.

  "You better marry him, then," Taylor whispers back.

  Cash stands a few feet in front of them with his feet wide apart. His shoulders curl forward, hunched and tense, as he lifts the rifle and takes aim. He remains frozen in this position for a very long time. Alice can see the gun barrel over his shoulder, wavering a little, and then she sees his shoulder thrown back at the same instant the gun's report roars over the clearing. Her ears feel the pain of a bell struck hard. The woods go unnaturally still. All the birds take note of the round black bullet wound in the TV screen, a little right of center but still fatal.

  Alice's heart performs its duties strangely inside her chest, and she understands that her life sentence of household silence has been commuted. The family of women is about to open its doors to men. Men, children, cowboys, and Indians. It's all over now but the shouting.

  Acknowledgments

  This book germinated under the warm ecouragement of friends in the Cherokee Nation, especially Ron Watkins, Nancy Raincrow Pigeon, and Loretta Rapien. Regina Peace, Toby Robles, Carol Locust, and Donna Goldsmith patiently helped me understand the letter and spirit of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Joe Hoffmann, Georgia Pope, Frances Goldin, Sydelle Kramer, and Janet Goldstein helped the story find its way through the woods. Camille Kingsolver gave me five-year-old insights and reasons to keep writing.