Dalva (33 page)

I pulled a rhetorical trick and turned my back to the crowd to collect my thoughts. The vision of a hamburger with fried onions and a cold beer passed before my eyes. I stayed with my back turned until I felt their sharpening nervousness, somewhat in the manner in which the great Nijinsky had become a human statue.

“Of course you can't fight history, but men of conscience occasionally help make it. You certainly don't fight or make history patting each other's asses at business lunches, or by the time-honored practice of buying cheap and selling dear. But, then, didn't Northridge become what all you folks really want? I mean rich, quite rich, crazy rich. How would you behave if you and your relatives had spent the last hundred years in a
rural slum, an arid concentration camp? I never said the Sioux were weeping-Jesus white Christians. I'm saying that history teaches us that your forefathers behaved like hundreds of thousands of pack-rat little Nazis sweeping across Europe. That's all. You won the war. Don't sweat it. I've never been to Pine Ridge. I'll go if you drive. I'll buy a case of whiskey and we'll have a party and you can give them a sermon on how they're behaving like so many redskin Leon Spinkses . . . .” I was just getting cranked up but MC Bill quickly adjourned the meeting as a response to a wave of moans and gasps. The upshot was that my last questioner, the old man, was a retired Methodist minister, a leading citizen, a town father, that sort of thing. Naomi led me out as swiftly as possible, not without some sparse handshakes and merriment by several of the younger men. There were also a few older types who slapped my back and guffawed as if I were a great stand-up comedian.

I made a beeline to the Lazy Daze, followed by Naomi and the owner-editor of the newspaper, who wanted to clarify some details from my interview with Karen. On my sweat-soaked way out of Lena's Café, Karen had been standing with several other waitresses and had given me another winning wink. For some reason I thought of Gene Pitney's song “Town Without Pity.” The lassie could make for a real afternoon mood change if it were only possible. Instead, my solace was to be an immediate double Scotch and beer chaser. Naomi and the editor entered laughing. The thought that Dalva had set me up for the whole thing was a spear in my side.

“You're the biggest news since we were runner-up in state basketball three years ago,” the editor said.

I glanced over his shoulder at the passel of burghers gathered on the sidewalk outside of Lena's, looking across the street at the bar with a specific envy. Back to the cash registers, dipshits! I thought. But, then, curiously, there had been enough smiles to tell me that the frontier amusement with a real mess was intact. Naomi said a curious thing—in forty years of living near this community she had never been in the bar! It was frowned on for schoolteachers. If they wished to drink in public there was a lounge-restaurant in a town forty miles to the east. The editor, who was a younger fellow educated in Lincoln, said that carloads of teachers would go over on Friday
afternoons, get drunk, and eat two-pound steaks. It was an attractive idea.

“Karen told me you're going to help her become a model,” the editor said, with a ludicrous wink, and an elbow in my ribs.

Back to the safety of Sherwood Forest, or some such, though Dalva is a closer reach to Maid Marian than I am to Robin Hood, I suppose. When we came in she was standing by the kitchen table next to a bowl of half-eaten cereal, of all things, staring out the window. I went to her for the embrace I craved and felt I deserved, and couldn't stop my momentum when she turned, looking utterly fatigued and haggard.

“Jesus, you look like you've been shacked up with a detachment of U. S. Cavalry.”

“Please shut up, Michael.” She avoided my embrace and went to her mother. “Rachel died. She said on the phone that she was sick but not that she was dying.” Now she was weeping and Naomi was attempting to comfort her. My face burned with embarrassment. She came over to where I was trying to slide out the door, took my arm, and bussed my cheek. “I need to sleep for a while.” I said I was sorry Rachel had died and left.

Out in the emotional safety of the bunkhouse it occurred to me that I didn't know who Rachel was. I remembered a Northridge passage wherein a group of young Sioux warriors were practicing a game or rite they had learned from a “crazy society” among the Cheyenne. The warriors stood in a circle and fired hunting arrows straight up in the air, then waited fearlessly to see if anyone would be injured or die from the behavior, which was ostensibly religious in nature. I took off my damp and sorry professorial clothes and went into the shower to cleanse myself of my last two arrows, my Rotary speech and then my comment to Dalva.

Out of the shower, I put on my farmer costume in obeisance to an actor's impulse to feel different. I glanced at my notes on a word and page count and figured I had looked at about ten percent of the journals from 1865 to 1877. I had not touched the trunk in the bank vault, which carried on from
there. I picked up the second and last volume of 1877—a sparse year for the journals-and saw my marker on a place where Northridge described his dream of dead Aase, and the beating death of his friend White Tree.

Aug. 28, 1877

It is curious that my dream of Aase wherein she entered my body has relieved me of so much of the suffering of mourning this past week. One dream wakes one from another & it is as if I can see the world further and in more detail. I am not sure what has occurred here. I deduce that each mourner of a beloved is buried in thoughts of his uniqueness. This thought reminds me of the wild goose I shot for dinner one day up on the Missouri not far from Fort Pierre. The mate of the goose circled the area for two days & I moved my camp to rid myself of this melancholy sight. Sam Creekmouth assured me that this phenomenon is also true of wolves. I have spent a year where my soul was buried with her body & I was of no use to the people whom I came to help in the time of their great peril. Though it has been twelve years now the memory of our own war is still violent & fresh enough that I wished in my grief to keep my distance from their own. . . .

Northridge is referring at this time to the extraordinary last six months of “freedom” for the Sioux and other tribes of the Great Plains: they won against Reynolds on the Powder River, won again under Crazy Horse at Rosebud Creek, and against Custer on the Little Big Horn; after which came the horror of defeat at Slim Buttes, Bull Knife, the Battle of Lame Deer, and the murder of Sioux chiefs at Fort Keogh. These six months allowed the warriors to relive their glory, also the doom their leaders had foreseen for so many years. Not much more remained for them after the surrender of the last remaining band of Oglalas under Crazy Horse, another six months later, at Fort Robinson.

Aug. 29-Sept. 5, 1877

I awake well before daylight at last conscious of my obligation to my dead brother White Tree—he had seen a birch tree in a dream but never in reality. I must look after his widow who is called Small or Shy Bird—her name in Sioux means a bird who sits
rather deliberately on a branch & regards all the activities of man with suspicion and amusement.

I am packed by mid-morning & say my prayers under the oak tree where she died a year ago. Kneeling as I knelt then I see her on the cot I made where she wished to spend her days out of doors, wrapped in a blanket despite the heat of the sun. We talked and I read to her from the Bible & the Sonnets of Shakespeare which she preferred. On that day I was disturbed as she saw a large bird I could not see so at last I admitted I saw it to relieve her concern. She said the bird was bringing the thunder. There were no clouds & I went down to the spring for a fresh pitcher of cold water. When I came back she reached out for me & we embraced & I felt her last breath against my ear. I sat there with her until early evening when indeed the lightning & thunder arrived. I let the rain fall on us, the first rain in a month, until we were wet & baptized anew & then I carried her body into the cabin.

I make the ride to Fort Robinson which is normally three days in less than two. For reasons that are not clear to me I feel panic & have strapped a pistol to my leg I purchased from a fearful man I met on the trail who is headed back to the East. He says there is a sense of ugliness & despair at Fort Robinson as all the Sioux are to be moved from Nebraska up to the Missouri where they do not wish to go. He expects a great battle and I assure him there are no more free Sioux to do battle. He says he sent his family to North Platte from his cabin & ranch near Buffalo Gap in June not wanting them scalped by the savages. I say I know the area well & there is a glint in his eye as he offers to sell me his section of land for a hundred dollars. He shows me the deed & I make the purchase & he is off at a gallop as if I intended to change my mind.

At Fort Robinson the Sioux are encamped a few miles to the south of headquarters on the creek, but I am told I am not allowed to visit them. When I remonstrate I am arrested and taken to the small stockade and jail. By great and incomprehensible coincidence the Lieutenant in charge there is my friend from long ago at Cornell whose Quaker father last summer told me was soldiering in the West. He dismisses the men who arrested
me & we walk outside. He begs me not to tell that he did not serve his country in the Civil War. I look at him as if he were daft, saying that I am ashamed to have accepted gold to take his place & the secret is safe with me. I explain my obligation to White Tree's widow & he sends two men for her. He tells me he is without sympathy for my efforts among the Sioux whom he will continue to help destroy, but feels somewhat bound by our past friendship. Small Bird is brought still soiled with the ashes of mourning & we are sent on our way after I have extracted a letter of safe passage from him. Since there are others in view he does not shake my hand when we depart.

Sept. 8, 1877

I have taken Small Bird on a two-day ride up to Buffalo Gap where I have purchased the cabin & property which is in reasonable repair. She had begged me to return to Fort Robinson to retrieve her mother who is not well. I would rather not do so but the memory of my own mother when she was ill spurs me toward my duty.

My classmate the Lieutenant is not pleased to see me again & smells of whiskey. The jail is hot & full of flies. He looks at papers & says Small Bird's mother is recently dead of cholera. I do not believe him but have no recourse. He points to a large darkened spot on the floor covered with flies & says it is there that Crazy Horse died the evening before after trying to escape. On orders he was bayoneted by another Indian. He wears a smile as he offers his condolences. My head grows dizzy & I kneel and touch the blood-moistened floor. I say a prayer & he tells me to get out. Two guards escort me out & to my horse. Far off a mile or so to the South I see the Sioux encampment and ride toward there though there are shouts & gunfire, whether directly at me or into the air I do not know. I look for faces I know among the mourners & Sam Creekmouth tells me that it is true. I see Worm, Black Shawl. He Dog, and Touch the Clouds but do not approach them. All the Sioux are to be moved to the Missouri immediately. Two boys run up to us to warn me that the detachment is mounting near the stockade perhaps to come arrest me. I mount & ride through the Sioux camp to the South at all possible speed & thankful that I am on my best horse & the day is darkening. I
circle to the West, then North toward Warbonnet Creek, discovering their pursuit to be short-lived. At nightfall I feel the coward in my heart for not drawing the pistol and shooting the man. Before I sleep I find I cannot ask forgiveness for this impulse so opposed as it is to my waning faith.

I find myself staring at the ceiling as if in momentary regret that I can read. It had been so long since I had read Sandoz and others that it was an effort to remember who Touch the Clouds was. I checked a reference text and discovered that this man with the curious name was the medicine man in whose arms Crazy Horse died. He Dog was allowed to visit his friend during the last few moments of his life. I turned from the desk, sensing I was being watched, to find the geese at the screen door waiting for dinner. Perhaps they were hoping for another bag of Frieda's corn chips. My wife and daughter had shared the affections of a nasty little toy poodle who preferred fried chicken livers. This mutt had shit in my shoe and I fed it a teaspoon of Tabasco in punishment. The dog had done a precise little aerial flip and begged for more hot sauce.

I walked toward the house, trailed by geese, just as Dalva came out the door with a pail of feed. The birds rushed her with their peculiar wobble-trot. How could I understand the past when I couldn't comprehend geese? I thought. Dalva looked rested and spiffy in a pale-blue summer dress and sandals.

“Can I do it? I'm trying to make contact with terrestrial creatures.” She handed me the pail and I flung handfuls of grain around the barnyard with a light heart.