carcass—the human, the buffalo, the body subject to the laws. I’d wonder how my mother got her spirit to return to her body, and if it had returned, and if mine was fleeing now because of what I’d done. Would I become a wiindigoo? Infected by Lark? And it occurred to me how even pulling trees that day, just months ago, I was in heaven. Unaware. I had known nothing even as the evil was occurring. I hadn’t been touched yet. Thinking finally exhausted me. I turned over, away from the light, and slept.
Dad, I said, once, when he came into the room. Does Linda know? Is she okay?
He’d brought me a glass of Whitey’s cure—warm ginger ale.
I don’t know, he said. She won’t pick up her telephone. She’s not at work.
I’ve got to get to her, I thought. And then I slept hard again until late the next morning. When I woke from that sleep everything was clear. I had no fever, no sickness at all. I was hungry. I got up and took a shower. Put fresh clothes on and came downstairs. The trees at the edge of the yard swayed and the leaves showed their dull silvery undersides. I ran myself a glass of tap water and stood at the kitchen window. My mother was outside, kneeling in the dirt of the garden with a colander, picking the bush beans that my father and I had planted late. She dropped down and crawled the row on all fours sometimes. Sat back on her heels. She gave the colander a little jounce, to settle the beans. That’s why I did it, I thought. And I was satisfied right then. So she could give her colander a shake. She didn’t have to look behind her, or fear he would sneak up on her. She could pick her bush beans all day and nobody was going to bother her.
I poured out a bowl of cereal and added milk. I ate it slowly. The cereal felt good going down. I rinsed my bowl and went outside.
My mother got up and walked over to me. She put her stained palm on my forehead.
Your fever’s gone.
I’m fine now!
You should take it easy, just stay home and read or ...
I won’t do much, I said. It’s just that school starts up in two weeks. I don’t want to waste any of my last days.
I guess they would sure go to waste if you stayed home with me. She wasn’t angry, but she didn’t smile.
I didn’t mean it that way, I said. I’ll come back early.
Her eyes, one sadder than the other with its sinking squint, moved softly over me. She pushed back my hair. I looked over her shoulder and saw an empty pickle jar sitting on the kitchen step. I froze. The jar. I’d left the jar on the hill.
What’s that?
She turned around. Vince Madwesin came by. He gave me the jar and said to wash it out. He said he likes my home-canned pickles. I guess it’s a hint. She looked back at me, closely, but I didn’t change my expression.
I am worried over you, Joe.
It was a moment I still linger on in my thoughts. Her standing before me in the riot of growth. The warm earth smell of her hands, a slick of perspiration on her neck, her searching eyes.
Whitey said you boys got drunk.
It was an experiment, I said, and the results came back negative. I wasted good vacation being sick, Mom. I think my drinking days are done.
She laughed in relief and the laugh stuck in her throat. She said she loved me and I mumbled back at her. I looked down at my feet.
Are you okay now? I asked, low.
Oh sure, my boy. I’m really good; I’m back to myself. Everything is fine now, fine. She tried to persuade me.
At least he’s dead, Mom. He paid, whatever else.
I wanted to add that he did not die easy, that he knew what he was getting killed for, that he saw who was killing him. But then I’d have to say it was me.
I couldn’t look at her and got on my bike. I rode away with her silent gaze heavy on my back.
First, I rode over to the post office. There was a chance I might run into Dad if it was lunchtime, so I wanted to slip in before noon and see if Linda was working. She was not. Margaret Nanapush, the grandma of the Margaret in my class at school, the girl at the powwow I turned out to marry, told me that Linda was using up some sick leave. As far as Mrs. Nanapush knew, she was at home. So I went there.
I was weak enough to feel that ride as endless. Out on that edge of the reservation, the wind cuts hard. I pedaled against its flow for a good hour before I came to Linda’s road, and then finally swerved into her driveway. Linda’s car was parked in a wooden carport. She drove, surprising to say, a cute blue Mustang. I remembered that she’d said she enjoyed taking to the road. I leaned my bike against her porch. I am
Joe! You snuck up on me!
She touched the screen, frowning at it. Shook it.
I’ve gotta fix this. Come in, Joe.
Her dog started barking, too late. He ran up the hill from a field below the sloping ledge of yard where the house sat. By the time he reached the house he was wheezing—a stumpy old black dog with a whitened face.
Buster, smile, said Linda. He lolled out his tongue, grinning and panting in a comical way. I thought of how I’d heard people looked like their dogs. It was true. Linda let him in with me.
I suppose we shouldn’t be laughing, considering what happened, she said as she led me into her kitchen. Sit down, Joe. What can I get you? She listed everything she had. Every kind of drink and sandwich possibility. I didn’t stop her. Finally, Linda said she was fond of a fried egg sandwich with horseradish mayonnaise, and that if I picked that one she’d make it for the both of us. I said that sounded good. While she was frying up the eggs, she told me I could look around and so I wandered into the living room and took in the odd order of her place. At my house, although we kept it neat enough, there were always piles of papers and other interesting stuff here and there. Or books that had gotten off the shelves. Not everything was put away immediately. There might be a jacket draped over a chair. Our shoes weren’t lined up by the door. Linda’s house was extremely neat in the usual way, but also in a way that disoriented me until I figured it out. Everything had a double, though not an identical. Her bookshelf had two books by each author, not the same book, though sometimes a hardback with its companion paperback. They were mostly historical romances. She had chosen collections of objects to display, also two by two. Glass figurines of Disney characters on her end tables, paired in different colors, circled the lamps on which she’d glued fake leaves sorted by the same principle. There were swamp-willow baskets hanging on the wall behind the television. Each held nearly the same arrangement of dried grasses and empty seedpods. She also had a gabled Victorian dollhouse that only a grown-up could have owned. I was afraid to look inside but did, and sure enough every room was completely furnished down to toothpick-fine candles and in the bathroom two infinitesimal toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste. I had the creeps and we hadn’t even talked. She called me back into the kitchen and I went in, tongue-tied. We sat down at her table, which was old and made of scarred wood. At least it was the only table. There was not another almost like it. She had covered it with a bright cloth and set out plates and glasses. She poured some iced tea. The bread was toasted crisp. There was an extra plate. I pointed at it.
What’s it for?
Doe told me in that sweat lodge, Joe, that since I had a double spirit around me I should just welcome it. I set up my house for two people, see, even the little people. And when I eat I always set out an extra plate and I put a bit of the food I’m eating on it.
There was a crust of bread on the plate.
Spirits don’t eat much?
Not this one, said Linda comfortably.
And suddenly it all seemed okay by me. I was hungry the way you get after an illness. Suddenly ravenous.
Linda munched away, beaming at me, then at the sandwich. She put the eggy bread down almost lovingly
