of the Small Songs.
We’d helped them pull the elk from the pit-it seemed like the least we could do. Then one thing had led to another and, seated in more kitchen chairs liberated from inside, all of us ate elk and watched the fire in the pit. The old woman had tossed the boards in on top of the coals, and there was now a nice fire going as she retreated into the house for more potato salad.
Nate’s mood had improved when Henry had produced a twelve-pack of Rainier. He smiled at all of us. “So, you thought I was Art?”
Henry shrugged, and I nodded with my mouth full.
“If I’d been Art, man, you never would’ve heard me.” He returned his gaze to the Cheyenne Nation. “I used to hear about how you were really something; I guess you’re getting old, huh?”
Henry sipped his beer, and if you looked closely you could see the barest trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “I caught you.”
Defiance glowed in the kid’s eyes, his ego still stinging from having been taken. “You’d never catch Art.”
The Bear chewed his elk and said nothing.
I caught the boy’s attention. “When’s the last time you saw your uncle?”
“Yesterday.”
“What was he up to?”
The kid gestured toward the meat on his plate. “Hunting.”
Lolo Long’s voice rose from by the door. “He know it’s not elk season?”
“He doesn’t care.”
I sipped my beer. “Where was he hunting yesterday?”
The young man gestured with his fork in a vague direction. “South of here.”
“Were you with him?”
“No, he hunts alone.”
I nodded sage-like, fished the elk call from my pocket, and tossed it between his hiking boots. “Is that yours or his?”
Nate balanced his plate on one knee and picked up the carved bone. “Artie’s-you can tell from the notch on the bottom; it’s his signature.” He looked back up. “Where did you get it?”
“Somebody tried to run me over in a ’70s red GMC pickup last night.”
He didn’t say anything to that.
“Doesn’t your uncle have a ’71 GMC?”
“Yeah, man, but I had that truck last night.” He stuffed the elk call in his shirt pocket. “I had a date, if it’s any of your business.”
“Do you always go out on dates with an elk tied to the hood?”
He looked a little uncertain. “Um… yeah.”
Mrs. Small Song exited the cabin and stopped to place a dollop of potato salad on Chief Long’s plate, paused to deposit more on Henry’s, and then advanced on me.
“Then you were the one who tried to run me over last night?”
His eyes dropped to his lap. “Um, yeah.”
The old woman paused and then gave me another portion as I continued talking to the kid. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know why you tried to run me over last night?”
He shrugged but stayed silent. He was obviously covering for his uncle-or for somebody-and wasn’t very good at it. I thought about the man I’d been able to make out at the wheel of the truck and thought he’d been bigger than the kid. “Where’s the truck now?”
“Art must have it-he lets me drive it over to work at the radio station, then he picks it up. I do the afternoon drive.”
“KRZZ?”
“Yeah.” He slipped into his on-air voice: “Nate Small Song with the big sound.”
I raised a fist in concert with Henry and Lolo, and we all chanted together, “Stay calm, have courage, and wait for signs.”
I ate a little bit, washing it down with the beer, giving him plenty of time to elaborate. I risked a glance up at the medicine woman, but she was looking off into the trees behind her house. I followed her clouded gaze and thought about how, even with her limited physical abilities, she was seeing far more than I was.
“I unloaded the elk and then parked the truck down the hill. It was gone this morning, so I figure Art took it.”
I glanced at the Bear, who continued eating. “How did Artie get here? You say you got the truck from him last night; where did you do that?”
If it hadn’t been for the seriousness of the subject, it would’ve been funny to see how fast the kid was trying to think. “Lame Deer.”
I continued badgering him. “Where in Lame Deer?”
“Well, not really Lame Deer-at the bar in Jimtown.”
It was actually a pretty good play; it would be difficult to get a straight answer out of anybody who was there as to whether they had seen Artie or what time that might’ve been. “So, Artie gave you the truck last night with this elk tied to the hood. Any idea what time that might’ve been?”
“Nope.”
I watched as the old woman beside me placed a hand on my shoulder, carefully took the can of beer from my hand, and then turned and went back in the house. It was a simple gesture, and you might’ve thought that it was completely innocent but for the touch. The medicine woman had tried to translate something to me in that instant. I attempted to see her in the kitchen, but she had disappeared. I turned back to look at Nate. “But the truck was gone this morning?”
He nodded his head, thankful that I’d taken the “nope” on his timing. “Maybe he got a ride from somebody in the bar, man. Maybe he just hiked over.”
I was a little incredulous. “That’s thirty miles.”
“He’s been known to do it.”
Henry’s voice rose from where he sat, across from the fire. “In the dark?”
The kid smiled back at him. “Tracking in the dark scare you, old Bear?”
Staring into the fire, the Cheyenne Nation took another bite of elk and chewed. The kid, naive as he was, didn’t know that Henry Standing Bear was the thing that scared the things in the dark.
Later, we helped collect the rest of the elk, clean up the site, and dampen the pit. The old woman was washing the dishes in a porcelain sink speckled with lead divots set in an equally battered metal kitchen cabinet.
It was as I was drying the mismatched discount-store plates that I took the time to take the place in; it reminded me of my grandparents’ house. Low-slung and notched into the back of the hillside, the house had been constructed with hand-scribed logs puttied with the old Oregon cement.
Her voice was little more than a whisper. “ Ahsanta, you’re the one whose wife died?”
I was always surprised by the way the Indians referenced me through my deceased wife. “Yes, ma’am.”
I could see three different types of wallpaper in the kitchen addition over which the upper cabinets were affixed. They were also metal but were the kind found in gas stations, complete with stickers advertising AUTOLITE, CRANE CAMS, and PUROLATOR OIL amp; AIR FILTERS.
“You like my cabinets?”
“I do.”
“My son, he got them for me.”
I wondered which gas station he’d stolen them from. “They’re very nice.”
Her eyes looked over the sink and out the window to where the others were killing the fire. “Because Artie is the way he is, he is blamed for things he hasn’t done.” She shrugged. “Because he is who he is, he gets away with some of the things he has done-it is the nature of things.”
I smiled down at her. “I understand.”
She looked up at me, and again it was as if her eyes were reflecting the clouds I couldn’t see in the nighttime
