a Michif tune. The candles flared more intensely as they burned down, dripping wax onto the frosting until they were mere stubs.
Blow them out! Make a wish! people cried, but Mooshum seemed mesmerized by their light. Grandma Ignatia leaned over and spoke right into his ear. He nodded, finally, and stooped over the cake and at that moment a stray breeze came through the arbor, a little gust. You think it would have extinguished the candles, but on the contrary. It gave them enough oxygen for one last flare and when this happened the little flames fused into a single fire that ignited the mixture of wax and whiskey icing. The cake caught fire with a gentle whoosh and the flames leapt high enough to ravel into Mooshum’s locks of greasy hair as he bent over with his lips pursed. I still have the picture in my mind of Mooshum’s head surrounded by the blaze. Only his delighted eyes and happy grin showed, as, it seemed, he was consumed. My grandfather and the cake might have been destroyed right there, if Uncle Edward hadn’t had the presence of mind to empty a pitcher of lemonade over Mooshum’s head. Just as providentially, Joseph and Evelina were still holding on to the masonite and ran the burning cake out onto the driveway, where the flames went out once they had consumed the liquorous frosting. Uncle Edward was again the hero of the day as he simply slicked off the scorched frosting with a long bread knife. He declared the rest of the cake edible, indeed, improved by the scorching. Someone brought gallons of ice cream and the party recommenced. I was told to take Mooshum inside to rest from the thrill. Once there, Clemence tried to cut away his singed locks.
The fire itself hadn’t touched his skin or his scalp, but to be on fire had excited him enormously. He was concerned that Clemence cut away only what parts of his hair were hopelessly black and shriveled.
Okay, I’m trying, Daddy. But the pieces stink, you know.
She gave up.
Oh here, Joe. You sit with him!
He was lying on the couch, pillowed, covered with an afghan, just a pile of sticks and a big grin. His white choppers had come loose in the excitement, so I fetched a cup of water and he plunged them in. Unfortunately, I chose an opaque plastic cup of the kind that children were using to drink Kool-Aid. While my back was turned, some four-year-old snatched the cup and ran outside happily drinking the denture water, imitating his older cousins, until apparently this child asked his mother for more Kool-Aid and she saw what was in the bottom. I sat by Mooshum, though, oblivious of these dramas. My cousins were home but much older than me and absorbed in carrying out constant orders from their mother. My friends, who had promised to come, weren’t here yet. This party would go on and on. There would be dancing later, fiddles, an electric guitar and keyboard, more food. My friends were probably waiting for Alvin’s pit-barbecued venison or the food coming from their own households. Once a party like this started on the reservation it always gained its own life. There was a tradition of the uninvited showing up and every party had provisions for that—as well as for those who would show up drunk and get too rowdy. But from all of this, lying in state on the living room couch, Mooshum was protected. Part of things but able to snooze. I sat with him as he dropped off and slept. But when Sonja entered he snapped to like a soldier. Her outfit must have penetrated his unconscious. She wore a shirt of softly fringed suede that clung to her breasts like an unforgiven sin. And those jeans, making her legs so long and lean. My eyes popped. New lizard-skin-trimmed cowboy boots! And she wore those studs in her ears. They trembled in the soft light.
I ducked when she tried to kiss the top of my head, moved off so she could sit in my chair, but stayed in the room with my arms folded, glaring at her. I knew that shirt was bought with my doll money and it looked expensive. She’d used a lot of my money again. And those boots! Everybody had to notice.
Sonja bent close to Mooshum. They were speaking in annoying low voices, and she was shaking her head, laughing. He was giving her a toothless pleading look that dripped with besotted admiration. She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then she held his hand and talked some more and both of them laughed and laughed themselves silly until I got disgusted and went away.
My parents were sitting in the grown-up seating area beneath the arbor and my mother, though talking little, was at least nodding as my father spoke to her. The band was setting up out by the storage shed. Behind the shed, Whitey and the other drinkers were sitting on the ground passing a bottle. Whitey was on a morose jag now. He sat in the corner of the yard staring at the party, trying to track things with his double vision, muttering dark thoughts that fortunately were completely incoherent. I saw Doe Lafournais and Cappy’s aunt Josey. There was Star and Zack’s mom, too, and Zack’s baby brother and sister. But no Zack, Angus, or Cappy. I didn’t want to ask where they were in case they were up to something, so I got my bike from beside the garage and left. I was pretty sure that Zelia had something to do with Cappy’s absence and sure enough, as I went toward the church I met Zack and Angus zigzagging down the hill, slow as they could, no Cappy.
He stayed behind. They’re gonna meet in the graveyard at dark, said Zack.
All three of us were crushed by the thought, even though we’d given up on Zelia day one. We rode back to the party, which was ramping up with jiggers stepping out onto the grass and Grandma Ignatia in the middle showing off her fancy steps. We ate as much as we could, then sneaked beers and poured the beer into empty soda cans. We drank and hung out listening to the band, watching Whitey hang on Sonja as they two-stepped until it grew late. My father said I should ride my bike home, and I did, wobbling into the yard. I took Pearl up to my room and was just falling asleep when I heard my parents coming home. I heard them walk up the stairs talking together in low voices and then I heard them enter their bedroom the way they always had before. I heard them shut their door with that final small click that meant everything was safe and good.
If things could stay that way, safe and good, if the attacker would die in jail. If he would kill himself. I couldn’t live with the if.
I need to know, I said to my father the next morning. You’ve got to tell me what the carcass looks like.
I’ll tell you when I can, Joe.
Does Mom know he could get out?
My father waved his finger across his lips. Not exactly, no. Well, yes. But we haven’t spoken. It would set her back, he said quickly. His face contorted. He put his hand over his features as if to erase them.
I have to look out for her, watch for him.
He nodded, and after a while he rose and with a heavy tread walked to his desk. As he fumbled in his pocket for his keys, I saw the vulnerable brown eggshell of his head, the wisps of white. He had begun to lock this particular drawer, but now he opened it and withdrew a file. He opened the file, walked over to me, and drew out a photograph. A mug shot. He put the photograph in my hands.
You mother hasn’t decided whether to tell anybody else, he said. It’s her call. So don’t talk about this.
A handsome but not good-looking powerful man with a pallid complexion and black shining eyes that showed no white, just the speck of livid life. His half-open mouth was filled with perfect white teeth and his lips were thin and red. It was the customer. The man who’d bought gas the day before I quit.
I’ve seen him before, I said. Linden Lark. He bought gas at Whitey’s.
My father didn’t look at me, but his jaw flattened, his lips went hard.
When?
Must have been just before he was picked up.
My father pinched the picture back and slid it into the file. I could see that it hurt his fingers to touch the photograph, that the mute image emitted a jagged force. He slammed the file back in the drawer, then stood staring at the papers scattered over his desk. He unclenched the hand over his heart, opened it, fingered a shirt button.
Bought gas at Whitey’s.
We heard my mother outside. She was pounding slim poles she’d cut down into the ground, setting them alongside her tomato plants. Next she would rip old sheets into strips to bind their acrid, musky stems, so that they could safely climb. Already the plants bore star-shaped flowers colored a soft, bitter yellow.
He’s studied us, said my father softly. Knows we can’t hold him. Thinks he can get away. Like his uncle.
What do you mean?
The lynching. You know that.
Old history, Dad.
Lark’s great-uncle was in the lynching party. Thus, I think, the contempt.
I wonder if he even knows how people here keep track of that, I said.
