He’s not as tall as I remember, but when I think about it, that’s always been the case, the few times I’ve seen him. I guess I build him up in my mind. He’s got the broad Kickaha face, but there’s no fat on his body. Pushing close to seventy now, his features are a roadmap of brown wrinkles, surrounding a pair of eyes that are darker than the wings of the crows that pulled me into this in the first place.
“Heard you were coming,” he says.
I guess my face reflects my confusion.
“I saw the dead man’s spirit pass by on the morning wind,” he explains, “and the manitou told me you were bringing his body to me. You did the right thing. After what the whites did to him, they’ve got no more business with this poor dead skin.”
He steps aside to let me go in and I angle the body so I can get it through the door. Whiteduck indicates that I should lay it out on his bed.
There’s not much to the place. A potbellied cast-iron stove with a fire burning in it. A wooden table with a couple of chairs, all of them handmade from cedar. A kind of counter running along one wall with a sink in it and a pail underneath to catch the run-off. A chest under the counter that holds his food, I’m guessing, since his clothes are hanging from pegs on the wall above his bed. Bunches of herbs are drying over the counter, tied together with thin strips of leather. In the far corner is a pile of furs, mostly beaver.
The oil lamp’s sitting on the table, but moment by moment, it becomes less necessary as the sun keeps rising outside.
“Mico ‘mis,” I begin, giving him the honorific, but I don’t know where to go with my words past it.
“That’s good,” he says. “Too many boys your age don’t have respect for their elders.”
I’d take offense at the designation of “boy”—I’ll be twenty-one in the spring—but compared to him, I guess that’s what I am.
“What will you do with the body?” I ask.
“That’s not a body,” he tells me. “It’s a man, got pushed off the wheel before his time. I’m going to make sure his spirit knows where it needs to go next.”
“But… what will you do with what he’s left behind?”
“Maybe a better question would be, what will you do with yourself?”
I remember John Walking Elk’s dying words. Be a warrior for me.
“I’m going to set things right,” I say.
Whiteduck looks at me and all that nervousness that’s been hiding somewhere just between my shoulder blades comes flooding through me. I get the feeling he can read my every thought and feeling. I get the feeling he can see the whole of my life laid out, what’s been and what’s to come, and that he’s going to tell me how to live it right. But he only nods.
“There’s some things we need to learn for ourselves,” he says finally. “But you think on this, James Raven. There’s more than one way to be a warrior. You can, and should, fight for the people, but being a warrior also means a way of living. It’s something you forge in your heart to make the spirit strong and it doesn’t mean you have to go out and kill anything, even when it’s vermin that you feel need exterminating. Everything we do comes back to us—goes for whites the same as skins.”
I was wrong. He does have advice.
“You’re saying I should just let this slide?” I ask. “That Turk gets away with killing another one of us?”
“I’m saying, do what your heart tells you you must do, no’cicen. Listen to it, not to some old man living by himself in a cabin in the woods.”
“But—”
“Now go,” he says, firm but not unfriendly. “We both have tasks ahead of us.”
I leave there feeling confused. Like I said, I’m not a fighter. Whenever I have gotten into a fight, I got my ass kicked. But there’s something just not right about letting Turk get away with this. Finding the dying man has lodged a hot coal of anger in my head, put a shiver of ice through my heart.
I figure what I need now is a gun, and I know where to get it.
“I don’t know,” Jackson says. “I’m not really in the business of selling weapons. What do you want a gun for anyway?”
That Jackson Red Dog has never been in prison is an ongoing mystery on the rez. It’s an open secret that he has variously been, and by all accounts still is, a bootlegger, a drug dealer, a fence, a smuggler, and pretty much anything else against the law that’s on this side of murder and mayhem. “I draw the line at killing people,” he’s said. “There’s no percentage in it. Today’s enemy could be tomorrow’s customer.”
He’s in his fifties now, a dark-skinned Indian with a graying ponytail, standing about six-two with a linebacker’s build and hands so big he can hold a cantaloupe the way you or I might hold an apple. He lives on the southern edge of the rez and works out of the back of that general store on the highway, just inside the boundaries of the rez, where he can comfortably do business with our people and anybody willing to drive up from the city.
“I figure it’s something I need,” I tell him. “You got any that can’t be traced?”
He laughs. “You watch too much TV, kid.”
“I’m serious,” I say. “I’ve got the money. Cash.”
I’d cleaned out my savings account before driving over to the store. I found Jackson in the back as usual, holding court in a smoky room filled with skins his age and older, sitting around a potbellied stove, none of them saying much. This is his office, though come spring, it moves out onto the front porch. When I said I needed to talk to him, he took me outside and lit a cigarette, offered me one.
“How much money?” Jackson asks.
“How much is the gun?” I reply.
I’m not stupid. I tell him what I’ve got in my pocket—basically enough to cover next month’s rent and a couple of cases of beer— and that’s what he’ll be charging me. He looks me over, then gives me a slow nod.
“Maybe I could put you in touch with a guy that can get you a gun,” he says.
Which I translate as, “We can do business.”
“Just tell me,” he adds. “Who’re you planning to kill?”
“Nobody you’d know.”
“I know everybody.”
All things considered, that’s probably true.
“Nobody you’d care about,” I tell him.
“That’s good enough for me.”
There’s laughter in his eyes, like he knows more than he’s letting on, but I can’t figure out what it is.
The gun’s heavy in my pocket as I leave the store and drive south to the city. I don’t know any more about handguns than I do fighting, but Jackson offers me some advice as he counts my money.
“You ever shoot one of these before?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“What you’ve got there’s a .38 Smith and Wesson. It’s got a kick and, to tell you the truth, the barrel’s been cut down some and it’s had a ramp foresight added. Whoever did the work wasn’t exactly a gunsmith. The sight’s off, so even if you were some fancy shot, you’d have trouble with it. Best thing you can do is notch a few crosses on the tips of your bullets and aim for the body. Bullet goes in and makes a tiny hole, comes back out again and takes away half the guy’s back.”
I feel a little sick, listening to him, but then I think of John Walking Elk dying in the snow, of Turk sitting in his precinct, laughing it off. I wonder how many others he’s left to die the way he did Walking Elk. I get to thinking about some of the other drunks I’ve heard of that were supposed to have died of exposure, nobody quite sure what they were doing out in the middle of nowhere, or how they got there.
“You planning to come out of this alive?” Jackson asks when I’m leaving.
“It’s not essential.”
He gives me another of those slow nods of his. “That’ll make it easier. You got the time, tell Turk it’s been a long time coming.”
That stops me in the doorway.
“How’d you know it was Turk?” I ask.
He laughs. “Christ, kid. This is
the rez. Everybody here knows your business before you do. What, did you think you were excused?”
I think about that on the drive down to the city, how gossip travels from one end of the rez to the other. It’s like my paintings, traveling across the country. I don’t plan where they go, how they go, they just go. It’s not something you can control.
I’m not worried about anybody up here knowing what I’m planning. I can’t think of a single skin who would save Turk’s life if they came upon him dying, even if all they had to do was toss him a nickel. I’m just hoping my mom doesn’t hear about it too soon. I’d like to explain to her why I’m doing this, but I’m not entirely sure myself, and I know if I go to her before I do it, she’ll talk me out of it. And if that doesn’t work, she’ll sit on me until the impulse goes away.
There are crows lined up on the power lines and leafing the trees for miles down the road. Dozens of them, more than I’ve ever seen. I know their roost is up around Pineback Road, near Whiteduck’s cabin. A rez inside the rez. But they’re safe there. Nobody on the rez takes pot shots at our black-feathered cousins.
When I come up on the entrance to the gravel pit, I see the crows are still there as well. I stand on the brakes and the car goes slewing toward the ditch. I only just manage to keep it on the road. Then I sit there looking in my rearview mirror. I see a man standing there among the crows, John Walking Elk, leaning on the gate at the entrance and big as life.
I back up until I’m abreast the gates and look out the passenger window at him. He smiles and gives me a wave. He’s still wearing that thin windbreaker, the T-shirt and chinos, the running shoes without socks. The big difference is, he’s not dead. He’s not even dying.
I light a cigarette with shaking hands and look at him for a long moment before I finally open my door. I walk around the car, the wind knifing through my jacket, but Walking Elk’s not even shivering. The weight of the gun in my pocket makes me feel like I’m walking at an angle, tilted over on one side.
“Don’t worry,” he says when I get near. “You’re not losing it. I’m still dead.”
And seeing a walking, talking dead man isn’t losing it?
“Only why’d you have to go leave me with that shaman?” he adds.
My throat’s as dry and thick as it was when I did my first two vision quests. I haven’t done the other two yet. Train-painting distracted me from them.
“I … I thought it was the right thing to do,” I manage after a long moment.
“I suppose. But he’s shaking his rattle and burning smudge sticks, singing the death songs that’ll see me on my way. Makes it hard not to go.”
I’m feeling a little confused. “And that’s a bad thing because … ?”
He shrugs. “I’m kind of enjoying this chance to walk around one last time.”
I think I understand. Nobody knows what’s waiting for us when we die. It’s fine to be all stoic and talk about wheels turning and everything, but if it was me, I don’t think I’d be in any hurry to go either.
“So you’re going to shoot Turk, are you?” the dead man says.
“What, is it written on my forehead or something?”
Walking Elk laughs. “You know the rez …”
“Everybody knows everybody else’s business.”
He nods. “You think it’s bad on the rez, you should try the spiritworld.”
“No thanks.”
“You try and kill Turk,” he says, “you might be finding out firsthand, whether you want to or not.” He gives a slow shake of his head. “I’ve got to give it to you, though. I don’t think I’d have the balls to see it through.”
“I don’t know that I do either,” I admit. “It just seems like a thing I’ve got to do.”
“Won’t bring me back,” Walking Elk says. “Once the shaman finishes his ceremony, I’ll be out of here.”
“It’s not just for you,” I tell him. “It’s for the others he might kill.”
The dead man only shakes his head at that. “You think it starts and stops with Tom McGurk? Hell, this happens anyplace you got a cold climate and white cops. They just get tired of dealing with us. I had a cousin who died the same way up in Saskatchewan, another in Colorado. And when they haven’t got the winter to do their job for them, they find other ways.”
“That’s why they’ve got to be held accountable,” I say.
“You got some special sight that’ll tell you which cop’s decent and which isn’t?”
I know there are good cops. Hell, Chief Morningstar’s brother is a detective with the NPD. But we only ever seem to get to deal with the ones that have a hard-on for us.
I shake my head. “But I know Turk hasn’t got any redeeming qualities.”
He sighs. “Wish I could have one of those cigarettes of yours.”
I shake one out of the pack and light it for him, surprised that he can hold it, that he can suck in the smoke and blow it out again, just like a living man. I wonder if this is like offering tobacco to the man-itou.
“How come you’re trying to talk me out of this?” I ask him. “You’re the one who told me to be a warrior for you.”
He blows out another lungful of smoke. “You think killing’s what makes a warrior?”
“Now you sound like Whiteduck.”
He laughs. “I’ve been compared to a lot of things, but never a shaman.”
“So what is it you want from me?” I ask. “Why’d you ask me to be a warrior for you?”
“You look like a good kid,” he says. “I didn’t want to see you turn out like me. I want you to be a good man, somebody to make your parents proud. Make yourself proud.”
I’ve no idea what would make my father proud. But my mom,all she wants is for me to get a decent job and stay out of trouble. I can’t seem to manage the first and here I am, walking straight into the second. But he’s annoying me all the same. Funny how fast you can go from feeling awed to being fed up.
“You don’t think I have any pride?” I ask.
“I don’t know the first damn thing about you,” he says, “except you were decent enough to stop for a dying man.”
He takes a last drag and drops his butt in the snow. Studies something behind me, over my shoulder, but I don’t turn. He’s got a look I recognize—his gaze is turned inward.
“See, someone told me that once,” he goes on, his gaze coming back to me, “except I didn’t listen. I worked hard, figured I’d earned the right to play hard, too. Trouble is I played too hard. Lost my job. Lost my family. Lost my pride. It’s funny how quick you can lose everything and never see it coming.”
I think about my uncle Frank, but I don’t say anything.
“I guess it was my grandma told me,” the dead man says, “how there’s no use in bringing hurt into the world. We do that well enough on our own. You meet someone, you try to give them a little life instead. Let them take something positive away from whatever time they spend with you. Makes the world a better place in the short and the long haul.”
I nod. “Putting Beauty in the world.”
“That’s a warrior’s way, too. Stand up for what’s right. Ya-ha-hey. Make a noise. I can remember powwow dancing, there’d be so many of us out there, following the drumbeat and the singing, you’d swear you could feel the ground tremble and shake underfoot. But these last few years, I’ve been too drunk to dance and the only noise I make is when I’m puking.”
I know what he means about the powwows, that feeling you can’t get anywhere else except maybe a sweat and that’s a more contemplative kind of a thing. In a powwow it’s all rhythm and dancing, everybody individual, but we’re all part of something bigger than us at the same time. There’s nothing like it in the world.
“Yeah,” the dead man says. “We used to be a proud people for good reason. We can still be a proud people, but sometimes our reasons aren’t so good anymore. Sometimes it’s not for how we stand tall and honor the ancestors and the spirits with grace and beauty. Sometimes it’s f
or how we beat the enemy at their own game.”
“You’re starting to sound pretty old school for a drunk,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “I’m just repeating things I was told when I was growing up. Things I didn’t feel were important enough to pay attention to.”
“I pay attention,” I say. “At least I try to.”
He gives me a considering look. “I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but what part of what you were taught has to do with that gun in your pocket?”
“The part about standing up for ourselves. The part about defending our people.”
“I suppose.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” I tell him. “But I still have to go down to the city.”
He gives me a nod.
“Sure you do,” he says. “Why would you listen to a dead drunk like me?” He chuckles. “And I mean dead in the strictest sense of the word.” He pushes away from the gates. “Time I was going. Whiteduck’s doing a hell of a job with his singing. I can feel the pull of that someplace else getting stronger and stronger.”
I don’t know what to say. Good luck? Good-bye?
“Spare another of those smokes?” he asks.
“Sure.”
I shake another one free and light it for him. He pats my cheek. The touch of his hand is still cold, but there’s movement in all the fingers. It’s not like the block of ice that tried to grab my sleeve this morning.
“You’re a good kid,” he says.
And then he fades away.
I stand there for a long time, looking at the gate, at the crows, feeling the wind on my face, bitter and cold. Then I walk back to my car.
Before I first started train-painting, I thought graffiti was just vandalism, a crime that might include a little creativity, but a crime nonetheless. Then one day I was driving back to the rez and I had to wait at a crossing for a freight train to go by. It was the one near Brendon Road, where the tracks go uphill and the freights tend to slow down because of the incline.