“I will,” I said. “And we’ve got some other things to talk about.”
He looked at me. “I can’t even think right now, Alex. Give me some time, okay?”
“Okay.” Then I said good night and went home to bed.
When I stopped in at Jackie’s the next morning, he asked me where I had been the night before. I told him about the funeral, how it would go on for days. He told me to wait while he went upstairs to put his suit on. He put a sign on the front door, reading GONE TO A FUNERAL, and then he went with me and met all of Vinnie’s family.
Some people stood up after dinner and told stories about Tom, about all the funny things he had done, about all the times he had gone out of his way to help somebody. Vinnie stood up toward the end and tried to say something. He started to tell a story about the first fishing trip he and Tom had gone on, when they were little kids. Vinnie couldn’t bring himself to stick the hook through the worm, so Tom had told him to stop acting like a chimook, which is Ojibwa slang for a white man. That got a laugh, but Vinnie couldn’t continue the story. He sat down next to his mother and she rubbed his back.
When Jackie and I were about to leave, Vinnie came to us and thanked us for coming.
“You don’t look so good,” I said. I had been wanting to talk to him about the men from Detroit, but now that I saw him I knew it would have to wait.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “Every time I close my eyes, I see the same thing.” He didn’t have to tell me what.
That was the second day of the funeral.
On the third day, I came around dinnertime again. I heard some more stories about Tom. Vinnie didn’t try to speak this time. I was walking almost normally now, and feeling like I had most of my energy back.
Vinnie looked even worse than the day before. I didn’t try to talk to him at all. I went home, wondering what in the world I could do for him.
Maskwa was right. His spirit was sick. Even I could see it now.
That was the third day.
On the fourth day, Vinnie collapsed. I picked him up off the floor, with some help from his cousins. We sat him down, fanned him, and tried to make him drink some water. Like a prizefighter, he tried to shake us off and get back on his feet.
“I’m all right,” he said. “Come on, guys. I just blacked out for a second. I’m all right.”
He wouldn’t go home. I offered to take him there myself and stay with him. But he refused. I went home by myself.
On the fifth day, Tom’s remains finally arrived from Canada. The last day of the funeral moved from the Cultural Center over to the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, a Catholic church located right on the reservation, between the two casinos. They did a Catholic funeral mass and then drove Tom’s coffin up to the top of Mission Hill. It was a cold day, as gray as only a Michigan October day can get. They buried Tom in the reservation’s graveyard, facing west.
When they were done, Vinnie went off by himself and looked out over the cliff. I went and joined him and looked down at the scene below-at Spectacle Lake and the new golf course, at all the pine and birch trees and Waishkey Bay and beyond that the heart of Lake Superior. There was a wooden shelter there on the overlook, with a couple of benches underneath. I had heard this was a party spot for young men on the reservation, but I didn’t see any trash lying around. Someone had taken some yellow paint and carefully written a message on the shelter. PLEASE RESPECT THE LAND. THE SPIRITS OF OUR ANCESTORS LIVE HERE.
“It’s a nice view up here,” I said. “It’s a good place to end up.” I felt stupid as soon as I said it, but Vinnie turned to me and gave me a weak smile.
“It’s a good place,” he said.
“Your mother told me I’m her son now,” I said. “Does that mean we’re brothers?”
“Of course it does.”
“I never got to ask you,” I said. “What does that word mean? The one you called me at the lodge?”
“I don’t remember that.”
“When we first got there, and we were stuck in the mud. You said my Ojibwa name would be Madasomething.”
“Oh, now I remember. Madawayash.”
“That’s it. What does it mean?”
“Well, you have to remember what we were going through at the time.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Just tell me.”
“It means ‘chattering wind.’”
“Good thing you’re my brother now or I’d have to smack you.”
“If you’re my brother, that means you have to come to the sweat with me.”
“A sweat? Is that part of the funeral?”
“No, it’s something they’re doing for me,” he said. “It’ll be good for you, too.”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about some things I’ve been thinking about,” I said. “About Red’s brother and that other guy, and some of the things they said. I promised myself I’d wait until you felt better.”
“I appreciate that.”
“The problem is, I don’t want the trail to get cold. You know what I mean?”
“I don’t want you to do this, Alex.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Tom is gone. We can’t change that.”
It took a moment for it to sink in. “Vinnie,” I said, “are we going to find out what really happened, or not?”
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later.” He turned to go.
“Vinnie-”
“Later, Alex. I promise.”
I watched him get into one of the cars. I stood there for a while, breathing in the cold air, and then I finally went to my truck and followed them.
We ended up over at the home of his cousin Buck, just down the street from his mother’s house. Buck had built a little sweat lodge in the backyard. It was a half sphere, about ten feet in diameter, made by lashing saplings together and covering them with canvas and old rugs. The men already had a fire going, several yards from the lodge. They were heating rocks in the fire, and then moving them into the lodge with a long shovel.
There were eleven men, counting me. The others stripped down to their underwear, piling their clothes on the ground. They waited patiently until everyone was standing there together, these mostly naked men of all ages, with long dark hair over their shoulders. I couldn’t imagine doing the same on a day like this, but I figured what the hell. I’d certainly done worse things on days even colder than this one. Like jumping into a lake so a madman could shoot at me.
I almost choked on the steam when I went into the lodge, but it was warm and made every muscle in my body go loose. There was a faint light from the sparks and from the glowing rocks in the center pit. I felt my way over to the edge and sat down with the other men, closing my eyes and letting the steam fill my lungs. Someone dipped a large ladle into a bucket of water and poured it on the rocks. Then he added some sage. One of the four medicines, that much I knew. I sat there hoping that the medicine would work and that it would make Vinnie start feeling like himself again.
That little scene up on the cliff. Vinnie not wanting to talk about it, or to even think about what to do next. That wasn’t the Vinnie I knew.
We sat in the lodge for at least an hour. It was better than any sauna I had ever been in. The sweat rolled down over my face, as if every poison in my body and every bad thought in my mind were being drawn out by the heat. Nobody said a word.
Finally, one man opened a flap and we all crawled out. The air felt as cold as the water had been in that lake, but I didn’t shiver. Instead I felt a tingling all over my body, and a lightness in my chest. I put my clothes back on, moving in slow motion. When I was dressed, I looked around for Vinnie, but didn’t see him. He was still in the
