The Round House

That’s what, Dad? I carefully said. The way you’d address a person in delirium.

He rubbed his sparse gray whiskers.

That’s Indian Law.

I nodded and looked at the edifice of knives and silverware on top of the sagging casserole.

Okay, Dad.

He pointed to the bottom of the composition and lifted his eyebrows at me.

Uh, rotten decisions?

You’ve been into my dad’s old Cohen Handbook. You’ll be a lawyer if you don’t go to jail first. He poked at the fuzzy black noodles. Take Johnson v. McIntosh. It’s 1823. The United States is forty-seven years old and the entire country is based on grabbing Indian land as quickly as possible in as many ways as can be humanly devised. Land speculation is the stock market of the times. Everybody’s in on it. George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. As well as Chief Justice John Marshall, who wrote the decision for this case and made his family’s fortune. The land madness is unmanageable by the nascent government. Speculators are acquiring rights on treaty-held Indian land and on land still owned and occupied by Indians—white people are literally betting on smallpox. Considering how much outright grease is used to bring this unsavory case to court, a case pled by no less than Daniel Webster, the decision was startling. It wasn’t the decision itself that still stinks, though, it was the obiter dicta, the extra incidental wording of the opinion. Justice Marshall went out of his way to strip away all Indian title to all lands viewed—i.e., “discovered”—by Europeans. He basically upheld the medieval doctrine of discovery for a government that was supposedly based on the rights and freedoms of the individual. Marshall vested absolute title to the land in the government and gave Indians nothing more than the right of occupancy, a right that could be taken away at any time. Even to this day, his words are used to continue the dispossession of our lands. But what particularly galls the intelligent person now is that the language he used survives in the law, that we were savages living off the forest, and to leave our land to us was to leave it useless wilderness, that our character and religion is of so inferior a stamp that the superior genius of Europe must certainly claim ascendancy and on and on.

I got it then. I pointed at the bottom of the mess.

I suppose that’s Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock.

And Tee-Hit-Ton.

I asked Dad about the first knife he laid on the casserole, stabilizing it.

Worcester v. Georgia. Now, that would be a better foundation. But this one—my father teased a particularly disgusting bit of sludge from the pile with the edge of his fork—this one is the one I’d abolish right this minute if I had the power of a movie shaman. Oliphant v. Suquamish. He shook the fork and the stink wafted at me. Took from us the right to prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes on our land. So even if ...

He could not go on. I hoped we’d clean the mess up soon, but no.

So even if I could prosecute Lark ...

Okay, Dad, I said, quieted. How come you do it? How come you stay here?

The casserole was starting to ooze and thaw. My father arranged the odd bits of cutlery and knives so they made an edifice that stood by itself. He had suspended Mom’s good knives carefully. He nodded at the knives.

These are the decisions that I and many other tribal judges try to make. Solid decisions with no scattershot opinions attached. Everything we do, no matter how trivial, must be crafted keenly. We are trying to build a solid base here for our sovereignty. We try to press against the boundaries of what we are allowed, walk a step past the edge. Our records will be scrutinized by Congress one day and decisions on whether to enlarge our jurisdiction will be made. Some day. We want the right to prosecute criminals of all races on all lands within our original boundaries. Which is why I try to run a tight courtroom, Joe. What I am doing now is for the future, though it may seem small, or trivial, or boring, to you.

Now it was Cappy and me, the two of us trying to break ourselves on the bike course. I’d ridden over to our construction site with him because he’d chopped up every piece of wood in his yard and reduced length after length to kindling. Still this was not enough and he wanted to go out and ride Sonja’s ponies. In his state of mind I thought he’d ride them to death. Besides, I didn’t want to see Sonja, or Whitey either, but I was desperate to distract Cappy so I told him that after we had cruised around and found Angus, we’d catch a ride to the horses though I didn’t mean it. From time to time, when we paused or wiped out, Cappy folded his hand on his heart and something crackled. I finally asked him what it was.

It’s a letter from her. And I wrote one back, he said.

We were breathing hard. We’d raced. He pulled out her letter, waved it at me, and then carefully folded it back into its ripped envelope. Zelia had that cute round writing that all high-school girls had, with little os to dot the is. Cappy waved another envelope, sealed, with her name and address on it.

I need to get a stamp, he said.

So we biked down to the post office. I was hoping Linda would not be working that day, but she was. Cappy put his money out and bought a stamp. I didn’t look at Linda, but I felt her sad pop eyes on me.

Joe, she said. I made that banana bread you like.

But I turned my back on her and went out the door and waited for Cappy.

That lady gave me this for you, said Cappy. He handed me a foil-wrapped brick. I hefted it. We got on our bikes and rode over to find Angus. I thought of throwing the banana bread at the side of a wall or in a ditch, but I didn’t. I held on to it.

We got to Angus’s and he came out, but said his aunt was making him go to confession, which made us laugh.

What is that? He nodded at the brick in my hand.

Banana bread.

I’m hungry, he said. So I tossed it to him and he ate it while we made our way toward the church. He ate the whole thing, which was a relief. He balled up the foil and put it in his pocket. He’d redeem it with his cans. I had assumed that while Angus went inside the church and made his confession, Cappy and I would wait outside under the pine tree, where there was a bench, or down at the playground, though we didn’t have a cigarette to smoke. But Cappy put his bike into the bike rack right alongside Angus’s and so I parked mine too.

Hey, I said. Are you going inside?

Cappy was already halfway up the steps. Angus said, No, you guys can wait outside, it doesn’t matter.

I’m going to confession, said Cappy.

What? Were you even baptized? Angus stopped.

Yeah. Cappy kept on going. Of course I was.

Oh, said Angus. Were you confirmed then?

Yeah, said Cappy.

When was your last confession? Angus asked.

What’s it to you?

I mean, Father will ask.

I’ll tell him.

Angus glanced at me. Cappy seemed dead serious. His face was set in an expression I’d never seen before, or to be more accurate, his expression and the look in his eyes kept shifting—between despair and anger and some gentle moony rapture. I was so disturbed that I grabbed him by the shoulders and spoke into his face.

You can’t do this.

Cappy terrified me then. He hugged me. When he stood back, I could tell that Angus was even more dismayed.

Look, I think I got the time wrong, he said. Please, Cappy, let’s go swim.

No, no, you’ve got the time right, said Cappy. He touched our shoulders. Let’s go in.

The church was nearly empty inside. There were a few people waiting for the confessional and a few up front praying at the feet of the Blessed Virgin, where there was a rack of votive candles flickering in red glass cups. Cappy and Angus slid into the back pew, where they knelt hunched over. Angus was